https://www.vijaypradeep.com/blog daily 0.75 2025-06-25 https://www.vijaypradeep.com/blog/unpacking-the-ai-robot-hype-part-2 monthly 0.5 2025-06-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/2738de59-968d-478d-b80e-f0e7d3a750e5/google_and_chatgpt.png Blog - Unpacking the AI Robot Hype: Part 2 - Lower Marginal-Cost, Mass-Produced Robots, thanks to GenAI. - Make it stand out Figure 2 - Two of the most complex & flexible calculators ever built. Regardless of whether or not they use GenAI underneath, both are still simple & easy to use, and enabled by $100bs of investment over decades. Source: google.com (Left) and chatgpt.com (Right). Both images cropped for compactness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/bcea6000-87c7-4613-b616-e49d6f7d3f8a/imx290.jpg Blog - Unpacking the AI Robot Hype: Part 2 - Lower Marginal-Cost, Mass-Produced Robots, thanks to GenAI. - Make it stand out Figure 3 - Two cameras built with the Sony IMX290 camera sensor. Left: $17 module from Guangzhou Sincere Optical (Source: Alibaba) Right: $700 Industrial machine vision camera from IDS Imaging (Source: Edmund Optics) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/5ccb0b05-65c4-43d2-af64-5dd04053a1fa/formic-bright-path.jpg Blog - Unpacking the AI Robot Hype: Part 2 - Lower Marginal-Cost, Mass-Produced Robots, thanks to GenAI. - Make it stand out Figure 5 - 3 examples of robot workcells moving towards mass producible or rapidly designable robot workcells. Left: Formic’s Ready-to-Deply Palletizing workcell (Source: Formic.co) Middle: Bright Robotics’s Closed BRC (Bright Robot Cell), designed for small assembly tasks. (Source: Bright Machines) Right: Path Robotics’s prebuilt welding workcell that automatically determines weld paths based on customer CAD files (Source: Path Robotics) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1fec203b-4f90-4df9-9ef8-73124b3d5fd2/google-pi-figure.jpg Blog - Unpacking the AI Robot Hype: Part 2 - Lower Marginal-Cost, Mass-Produced Robots, thanks to GenAI. - Make it stand out Figure 6 - Multiple examples of GenAI robots performing general tasks Left: A general purpose robot, “The Everyday Robot”, developed by Alphabet’s X. It relies on the PaLM-SayCan model to translate verbal instructions into robot action. While not robust enough for commercial deployment, it was able to complete a variety of subtasks that are needed to clean & tidy an entire cafe. Source: IEEE Spectrum, 2021 Middle: Physical Intelligence’s π0 RFM generalist policy, folding a towel. Source: Physical Intelligence Right: Figure AI’s helix model being used to unpack groceries. Source: Figure AI https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/6b62e672-a91f-43bb-8fe0-2b8984380902/gemini-results.png Blog - Unpacking the AI Robot Hype: Part 2 - Lower Marginal-Cost, Mass-Produced Robots, thanks to GenAI. - Make it stand out Figure 7: Success rate for 8 different tasks using Google’s Gemini Robotics model, Physical Intelligence’s pi-0 model, and a diffusion policy model. While these are amazing, best-in-class, research results, it also shows how far we are from generalist models that can perform a wide range of tasks at a high reliability. Source: "Gemini Robotics: Bringing AI into the Physical World” 2025 (arxiv) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/33b822b9-7756-4fe4-bc71-d289788f16d6/kuka-rocketfarm-intrinsic.jpg Blog - Unpacking the AI Robot Hype: Part 2 - Lower Marginal-Cost, Mass-Produced Robots, thanks to GenAI. - Make it stand out Figure 4 - Left: In 2021, Kuka’s revenue from developing and deploying robot systems almost matched their €1B revenue from selling robots. (Kuka 2021 Annual Report, Pg 2 - Cropped for compactness) Middle: Instantly designed & cloud simulated UR10e-based palletizing workcell, based on customer specifications. (Source: RocketFarm MyRobotCloud). Right: Intrinsic’s FlowState, simplifying custom-workcell design and deployment (Source: Intrinsic) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/aacae9f6-f751-48c5-a203-7e200ddc8aec/guangdong-kuka-cropped.jpg Blog - Unpacking the AI Robot Hype: Part 2 - Lower Marginal-Cost, Mass-Produced Robots, thanks to GenAI. - Make it stand out Figure 1 - Kuka’s traditional industrial robots being mass produced by Kuka robots in traditional robot workcells in China’s Guangdong Province. While this article isn’t focused on traditional workcells or robots, this factory nonetheless signals the beginning of a new chapter of mass production and cost reduction for robot systems. Source: Screenshot from Youtube “Innovative Manufacturing Technologies Illuminate China's Manufacturing Triumph” by Switch TV News. https://www.vijaypradeep.com/blog/unpacking-the-genai-robot-hype-part-1 monthly 0.5 2025-03-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/e3b28f41-b361-4aa8-942f-ec24d60dcf1c/blue-collar-collage.jpg Blog - Unpacking the GenAI Robot Hype: Part 1 - A New Generation of Robot Hardware, powered by GenAI - Make it stand out Figure 1 - “Blue collar” work spans a variety of industries and skill sets, with almost all involving significant manual labor and requiring expertise across a variety of disparate tasks. General AI powered robots are poised to capture a major piece of these $Ts labor markets. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/763f8944-93fd-47cf-a233-eafdd9268d2f/humanoids.jpg Blog - Unpacking the GenAI Robot Hype: Part 1 - A New Generation of Robot Hardware, powered by GenAI - Make it stand out Figure 5 - Humanoids performing human-centric tasks in human-centric environments (Left) Agility’s Digit robot carrying totes in an amazon warehouse (Source: TheTimes.com) (Middle) Tesla’s Optimus robot mixing drinks. (Source: Reddit) (Right) Figure’s humanoid loading automotive parts in a factory machine (Source: Techeblog.com) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/dc7a16e0-012b-4859-b2bc-468539e84046/specialized-robots.jpg Blog - Unpacking the GenAI Robot Hype: Part 1 - A New Generation of Robot Hardware, powered by GenAI - Make it stand out Figure 7 - Two examples of very-specialized non-humanoids (Left) - A mobile welding robot from RecGreen. With classical robot programming, it would be prohibitively expensive to precisely map an entire facility and hardcode all the specific welds that would need to be performed. GenAI removes these burdens, as the specific movements for each task can be determined autonomously, in-situ, based on the sensor information it has just received. (Source: RecGreen) (Right) - Warehouse robots like Boston Dynamics’s Stretch robot often need to carry heavy or large loads, making a human form factor less than ideal. (Source: Boston Dynamics) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/825d5772-0361-45b9-abae-e948a660bcd7/discriminative-ai-robots.jpg Blog - Unpacking the GenAI Robot Hype: Part 1 - A New Generation of Robot Hardware, powered by GenAI - Make it stand out Figure 4 - (Left) A mass produced, truck loading workcell from Dexterity AI. While various trucks and boxes might have different shapes, weights, & sizes, the system is general enough to adapt to customer-specific environments, thus enabling the workcell to be mass produced. (Source: Dexterity (Top Right): At AMP Robotics, a discriminative AI classification model is able to determine the material types for various refuse, and dynamically command a robot to grab and sort the specific items that need to be recycled (Source: Robohub) (Bottom Right): Object detection & grasp location discriminative AI models enable RightHand Robotics piece-picking workcells to scale to handle 100s of different items without reconfiguration. (Source: Righthand Robotics) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/4eadf82d-235b-49aa-8d5e-3a062190c387/seam-tracking-piece-picking.jpg Blog - Unpacking the GenAI Robot Hype: Part 1 - A New Generation of Robot Hardware, powered by GenAI - Make it stand out Figure 3 - (Left) A laser-line projector & depth sensor enable this Abicor-Binzel workcell track a weld-seam (Source: Binzel-Abicor) (Right) A 3D depth camera enables this Tekniker workcell to pick up chaotically placed parts (Source: MVTec) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/bd3cffbf-cbf4-4cb8-9467-9fbb22ae8937/simple-robots.jpg Blog - Unpacking the GenAI Robot Hype: Part 1 - A New Generation of Robot Hardware, powered by GenAI - Make it stand out Figure 6 - Two low cost general purpose household robots. Even with limited dexterity and robot joints, these robots are still capable of meaningful household tasks. (Left) - Hello Robot’s Stretch Home Robot (Source: TechCrunch, Feb 2024) (Right) - Roborock’s Saros z70, which is able to tidy a household while vacuuming. (Source: Roborock) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/0c3d3309-ef86-478d-b56e-0ead350195a4/welding-bots.jpg Blog - Unpacking the GenAI Robot Hype: Part 1 - A New Generation of Robot Hardware, powered by GenAI - Make it stand out Figure 2 - Automotive welding robots are the canonical example of fully-constrained automation, and are still prevalent today. (Left) - Unimate welding robots at a Chrysler plant in Michigan - 1979 (Source: Autoevolution.com) (Right) - Kuka welding robots at a Tesla Gigafactory in Texas - approx 2022 (Source: Tesla) Despite the 40 year gap between photos, these two welding lines look awfully similar https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/8636e985-5a28-40a7-a203-38c1f374839b/beyond-human.jpg Blog - Unpacking the GenAI Robot Hype: Part 1 - A New Generation of Robot Hardware, powered by GenAI - Make it stand out Figure 8 - Examples of real and fictional beyond-human systems (Top left) - Boston Dynamics’s Spot Quadruped with an additional arm (Source: Boston Dynamics) (Top Middle) - Unitree’s Go2-W wheeled quadruped (Source: Unitree) (Top Right) - Depiction of the Hindu god Vishnu, with four arms (Source: HD Asian Art (Bottom Left) - Dexterity’s ‘Industrial Superhuman’ Mech truck loader (Source: Dexterity) (Bottom Right) - Dr Octopus’s flexible snake arms, from SpiderMan 2 (Source: Fandom.com) https://www.vijaypradeep.com/blog/re-imagining-robot-arm-design monthly 0.5 2024-08-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/9d60eb96-9460-4e97-9afc-16f7a5dab697/Figure-05.gif Blog - Re-imagining Robot Arm Design: How An Overlooked Technology can create cheaper, easier to use, and more responsive robots - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/0c22e784-182a-458b-aaf6-29157cef9fcd/Figure-07.png Blog - Re-imagining Robot Arm Design: How An Overlooked Technology can create cheaper, easier to use, and more responsive robots - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/d10cdbef-abba-48fd-bb29-d4579573e366/Figure-06.gif Blog - Re-imagining Robot Arm Design: How An Overlooked Technology can create cheaper, easier to use, and more responsive robots - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/e966e05a-26ab-4c6d-a222-030a73d471fb/Figure-09.jpg Blog - Re-imagining Robot Arm Design: How An Overlooked Technology can create cheaper, easier to use, and more responsive robots - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/5a1e0938-4d52-48d6-9339-c32d91665434/Figure-08.png Blog - Re-imagining Robot Arm Design: How An Overlooked Technology can create cheaper, easier to use, and more responsive robots - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/6aae09ef-63d8-4d60-8b1f-8486c9267b6e/pbclc-chart.png Blog - Re-imagining Robot Arm Design: How An Overlooked Technology can create cheaper, easier to use, and more responsive robots - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/7a785088-ed7d-45fb-b376-2fc9678456f2/Figure-02.gif Blog - Re-imagining Robot Arm Design: How An Overlooked Technology can create cheaper, easier to use, and more responsive robots - Make it stand out Figure 2: This example from Nimble robotics shows a UR10e robot arm completing a bin-picking task in a warehouse fulfillment application. In the high level control loop, a depth sensor scans a bin, and a computer plans the robot’s trajectory to pick up an item and place it in the tray. This high-level loop executes close to once every second. In the low-level control loop, the robot generates joint torques to accurately follow the previously requested trajectory. This low level loop runs at 500 Hz! Source: Screenshot from Youtube “Introducing Nimble” by Nimble. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/20c6b096-dfcc-49cb-8b81-f94a0a35632e/Figure-04.gif Blog - Re-imagining Robot Arm Design: How An Overlooked Technology can create cheaper, easier to use, and more responsive robots - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/f72e5933-9e4e-4c87-91ff-c633bd2a1e59/TeslaEgg.jpg Blog - Re-imagining Robot Arm Design: How An Overlooked Technology can create cheaper, easier to use, and more responsive robots - Make it stand out Figure 1: The Tesla Optimus Gen 2 robot relies on perception-based closed-loop control to delicately grasp eggs, using tactile feedback from pressure sensor arrays on each of its fingertips. Source: Screenshot from Youtube “Optimus - Gen 2” by Tesla. https://www.vijaypradeep.com/blog/building-an-export-focused-robotics-industry-in-trinidad-amp-tobago monthly 0.5 2020-12-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1609255522778-HYGWB8E5SHN3BXV83436/tobago-4612257_1920.jpg Blog - Building an Export-Focused Robotics Industry in Trinidad & Tobago https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1609256452000-WUY60KXH8CBMVAXRZVI7/2020-02-13-VirtanaCodeJam-2.jpg Blog - Building an Export-Focused Robotics Industry in Trinidad & Tobago Figure 1 - UWI students participating in the Virtana Code Jam event in February 2020. Events like this promote technical growth and teamwork through challenging algorithmic puzzles, and give students exposure to the types of skills needed to tackle many of the problems encountered at companies like Virtana. https://www.vijaypradeep.com/blog/2017-04-28-ethereums-memory-hardness-explained monthly 0.5 2020-04-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1586545538608-R9QWTKDG9XXIGKDATFM5/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Ethereum's Memory Hardness Explained Figure 2 - MSI RX 470 Graphics Card (Source Flikr: CORP Agency) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1586615918446-0QVS1613R87SQXMFWSBX/mining_farm.jpg Blog - Ethereum's Memory Hardness Explained https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1586545456857-IBDZZ6RDP6EW7WI1OWLP/ethash_algorithm.png Blog - Ethereum's Memory Hardness Explained Figure 1 - Algorithmic flow for how Ethereum’s ethash hashing algorithm works (Vijay Pradeep - Source) https://www.vijaypradeep.com/work daily 0.75 2021-10-14 https://www.vijaypradeep.com/home daily 1.0 2023-09-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/8e3ac631-72d0-4a23-bddc-25587b41084e/VijayPradeep-Headshot.jpg Home Vijay Pradeep is a Silicon Valley robotics engineer and angel investor, and has been involved in the robotics sector for over a decade. He was a Co-Founder of hiDOF, Inc., a Silicon Valley robotics consulting firm, that has worked with Fortune 500 companies and startups in a variety of areas, including VR/AR, vehicle autonomy, medical imaging, drones, personal aviation, and industrial automation. His team joined Google’s Daydream VR effort, where Vijay led the sensor characterization and factory calibration teams, helping to launch Daydream View, Tango, & ARCore. Vijay received his B.S. in Computer Systems, focusing on Robotics and Mechatronics, and his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering focusing on Control Systems, both from Stanford University. His academic contributions have been showcased in a variety of robotics conferences, journals, and books. Vijay’s contributions to ROS (Robot Operating System) and the PR2 robot platform are now used widely in the open source robotics community. Vijay splits his time between San Francisco, California, USA and St Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1586529392798-T2OLLU3CP2SGMKXLXBLL/IMG_20171201_170326.jpg Home VR/AR Panel Discussion @ TechBeach Retreat, Dec 2017 Iberostar Resorts, Montego Bay, Jamiaca (Dec 2017) https://www.vijaypradeep.com/investments daily 0.75 2025-03-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1b3173f2-a592-4de0-9f62-1628d19357e3/hippo.jpg Investments - Hippo Harvest Hippo Harvest Invested Dec 2023 (A) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1586611184628-NVIRYSF4JTFUAMZKY5TW/elroy-air.jpg Investments - Elroy Air Invested Nov 2017 (Seed), Nov 2018 (A), Aug 2021 (AA), Nov 2022 (PreB) Elroy Air’s air cargo system features rotor-based vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and transitions to wing-based cruise flight for long range. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1586613063870-BGTSQ2F2B62FFSAZILGC/telogis-4x3.png Investments - Telogis Invested Aug 2014. Telogis provides a comprehensive cloud-based Mobile Enterprise Management (MEM) software platform for companies that require dynamic routing, real-time work order management, navigation, telematics and mobile integration services for their mobile workforces. Acquired by Verizon, Aug 2016. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/5bd11dec-4b2c-43ef-8bdc-9624b3dcd903/MadeAndModern.jpg Investments - Made & Modern Treeswift Made and Modern offers personalized furniture products. It blends AR with digital manufacturing and uses its proprietary software utilizing commodity robotics for production, providing customers with novel and innovative furniture alternatives. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1622485337320-BX3DKFIFBEPOJZ9KXWC6/treeswift.jpg Investments - Treeswift Invested Jan 2021 (Seed). Treeswift is building forest monitoring systems for carbon capture estimation, timber value estimation, deforestation monitoring, and forest management. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/03815739-8c66-4376-a3e3-f02624aae4ed/MonomerBio.jpg Investments - Monomer Bio Monomer’s first solution is an end-to-end platform for cell culture automation. Monomer enables massive parallelization of cell culture studies by providing the automation expertise and intelligent software required to build fully-automated workcells that can handle complex cell culture processes from start to finish. Monomer is the only platform that combines execution software with optimization and machine learning algorithms designed to analyze characteristics like cell morphology which gives operators well-level visibility into 1,000s of concurrent culture plates. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1586611224534-7TTCYHMETK8MO8K242QD/zipline.jpg Investments - Zipline Invested June 2015 (A). Zipline designs, manufactures, and operates drones to deliver vital medical products https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1586611204958-VIP7F4LJKJG6JZJVA297/simbe-robotics.jpg Investments - Simbe Robotics Invested January 2016 (Seed) & March 2022 (Pre-B). Simbe’s first product, Tally, is the world’s first fully autonomous shelf auditing and analytics solution providing visibility and insight into the state of merchandise in stores. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e907defd88d920ba1aaa0cc/1586611311722-IZXGM2H3LBFEBGAWUFP9/magic-leap.jpg Investments - Magic Leap Invested May 2011 (Strategic/Consultancy) The most immersive see-through AR headset. Magic Leap is pioneering see-through augmented reality through innovative waveguide development and manufacturing — enabling the next phase of human + digital experiences. https://www.vijaypradeep.com/research daily 0.75 2020-12-29