Recently, Figure, a California-based humanoid robot company, announced that the company is developing a new high-volume BotQ humanoid robot manufacturing plant.
According to Figure, the first generation of the BotQ plant has a significant production capacity, with an estimated capacity of 12,000 humanoid robots per year, and this is just the beginning. In the next four years, Figure plans to expand its production capacity to 100,000 units per year to meet the growing market demand. This mass production plan demonstrates Figure's ambitions in the field of humanoid robots and marks a new stage of development in the field of humanoid robot production.
In order to achieve the goal of mass production, Figure has incorporated many innovative ideas and advanced technologies into the construction of the factory. On the one hand, the company adopts a vertically integrated manufacturing model, internalizing key production links, from raw material procurement to final product assembly, all of which are controlled by the company. This not only ensures that the product quality is of the highest standard, but also ensures a high level of production efficiency by responding quickly to design changes or quality issues. On the other hand, the factory will also introduce advanced software platforms, covering manufacturing execution system (MES), product lifecycle management (PLM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and warehouse management system (WMS), to realize the digital and intelligent management of the production process, and effectively improve production efficiency and resource utilization.
Another highlight of the BotQ factory is "robots making robots". Figure plans to involve its humanoid robots in production processes, such as assembling parts and handling goods, to increase automation and reduce human involvement in repetitive tasks. With the increase in robotic labor, the productivity and flexibility of factories will be further improved.
In terms of humanoid robot products, Figure also plans to transition from the prototype humanoid robot Figure 02 to the production-ready Figure 03. Designed for high-volume production and cost-effectiveness, Figure 03 features a cleaner design to reduce the number of parts and simplify the assembly process. In terms of actual assembly, companies are moving away from slow and costly numerical control machining (CNC) to faster and cheaper manufacturing processes such as injection molding, metal injection molding, die casting, and stamping. This shift dramatically reduces part manufacturing time from days or weeks to seconds.
In addition, Figure has developed an in-house AI software, Helix, for direct control of robots on the production line, further reducing reliance on traditional conveyor systems.
The Helix system combines two key AI modules. The first module is a multimodal language model with 7 billion parameters capable of processing speech and visual information at frequencies of 7 to 9 Hz, acting as the "brain" of the robot. The second module is an AI with 80 million parameters that translates instructions from language models into precise robot actions at frequencies of up to 200 Hz. The emergence of Helix is crucial to the scale of domestic robots.
The BotQ factory will use a hybrid workforce model of robots and humans, combining the best of both worlds to increase the flexibility, speed and precision of production. This model not only improves production efficiency, but also provides new ideas for the application of humanoid robots in more fields in the future.
The establishment of the Figure BotQ humanoid robot factory marks an important step forward in the field of humanoid robot manufacturing. Through mass production, technological innovation, and a high degree of automation, Figure is expected to promote the widespread application of humanoid robots around the world, providing a new direction for the future development of manufacturing.
Figure said that in the future, it will continue to strengthen reliability testing and continuous innovation to prepare for rapid expansion. With the gradual improvement of the BotQ factory, humanoid robots are expected to be implemented in more industries, bringing more convenience to human life and production.