Digit

A teal bipedal robot with long arms, a spherical head with glowing eyes, and many sensors and cameras visible in it's neck. It is holding one arm out to the side. — Digit's arms are designed to help with mobility and balance. Photo: Agility Robotics

Digit is a humanoid robot with a unique leg design that helps it move in a more dynamic fashion than regular humanoid robots do. It has nimble limbs and a torso packed with sensors and computers that will allow it to navigate complex environments and carry out useful tasks in warehouses and other environments.

Creator

Agility Robotics

Year

2019

Country

United States 🇺🇸

Categories

Features

Did you know?

Digit is a direct descendant of Cassie, Agility's first robot, but Digit has a torso with sensors and a pair of arms.

Two bipedal robots move yellow bins in a factory setting. — Amazon is testing Digit at its robotic research and development warehouse. Photo: Agility Robotics

Full length view of a teal, silver and black bipedal robot with jointed legs. — Who you calling "ostrich legs"? Photo: Agility Robotics

History

Founded in 2015, Agility Robotics develops highly capable bipedal robots for logistics and research applications. The company's goal is to build legged machines that can go anywhere a person can go. Its first robot, released in 2016, is a bipedal platform called Cassie, a dynamic walking robot that could traverse rough terrain and step over obstacles. Unveiled in 2019, Digit is Agility's second robot. Its legs are similar to Cassie's, but Digit is equipped with a torso full of sensors as well as a pair of arms, used for balance, mobility, and manipulation. Agility is working to bring Digit into factories, doing useful repetitive tasks so that humans can focus on more interesting things. A robot factory in Oregon will be able to produce 10,000 Digits per year to keep up with demand.

Two human men in casual clothes stand with a humanoid robot that is almost their height. — At 5'9, Digit is close in height to Agility president Damion Shelton [left] and chief robot officer Jonathan Hurst. Photo: Evan Ackerman

A blue-green bipedal robot with arms, cameras and sensors built into it's torso and a lidar "head". — Spot the differences between the current version and this first version of Digit! Photo: Dan Saelinger

More Images

A legged robot and bipedal humanoid robot that share similar aesthetic appearance. — Real-life droids. Photo: Dan Saelinger

A lanky bi-pedal humanoid walks on a suburban sidewalk while carrying a package. — Early versions of Digit explored package delivery. Photo: Dan Saelinger

Specs

Overview: Legged mobility with perception and arms; can get up off the ground, lift boxes, go outdoors and in human environments; can map environments. Can carry up to 16 kg.
Status: Ongoing
Year: 2019
Website: agilityrobotics.com
Height: 175 cm
Length: 20 cm
Weight: 65 kg
Sensors: Lidar, four Intel RealSense depth cameras, MEMS IMU, absolute and incremental encoders for proprioception.
Actuators: Brushless DC motors, with custom-designed transmissions
Degrees of Freedom (DoF): 16 (Legs: 5 DoF x 2; Arms: 3 DoF x 2)
Materials: Aluminum; thermoformed polycarbonate variants; carbon fiber composite components.
Compute: Two Intel i7 multi-thread CPUs, payload bay for customer-added computer such as Intel NUC or Nvidia Jetson for additional perception or machine learning capabilities.
Software: Linux-based real-time operating system for main control computer, high-level planning and perception handled on secondary computer.
Power: Custom 1.2-kWh lithium-polymer battery pack