Hugging Face is getting into the world of humanoid robotics with Reachy 2, a $70,000 AI-powered robotic designed and constructed by its newest acquisition, Pollen Robotics.
“So excited to start out promoting Reachy 2 this week, the primary open-source humanoid robotic!” Hugging Face co-founder Clément Delangue tweeted. “It is costly however already in use at Cornell, Carnegie Mellon & main AI labs for robotics analysis and schooling.”
Whereas open-source robots aren’t new, Reachy 2 is the primary manufactured, commercially obtainable, open-source humanoid robotic.
“Reachy 2 is a flexible, expressive, and open robotic platform designed to discover the way forward for human-robot interplay, assistive robotics, and AI-driven behaviors,” Hugging Face claims. The robotic has a “humanoid higher physique” and consists of stereo imaginative and prescient, microphones, a speaker, and lidar.
Every of the robotic’s arms has seven levels of freedom, permitting it to maneuver in seven impartial instructions, mimicking the pliability of a human arm.
“Whether or not you wish to construct an expressive assistant, a teleoperated avatar, or a robotic that learns from demonstration, Reachy 2 offers you the instruments to make it occur,” the corporate stated.
Reachy 2’s launch comes as Hugging Face, an AI firm and platform greatest recognized for its open-source machine studying instruments, expands into robotics. In November, the corporate stated it was creating small language fashions for “Subsequent Stage Robotics.”
Reachy 2 was developed by Pollen Robotics, a Bordeaux, France-based firm based in 2016. Pollen Robotics launched the unique Reachy in 2020.
It runs on Robotic Working System 2 (ROS 2) and Hugging Face’s LeRobotHF framework and is accessible by way of a Python-based software program interface.
Past its technical specs, Delangue clarified who Reachy 2 is—and isn’t—supposed for.
“It isn’t a client robotic,” he stated. “It is an AI lab robotic so fairly completely different.”
On Monday, Hugging Face introduced that it had acquired Pollen Robotics for an undisclosed quantity.
In a separate submit on X, the corporate laid out its broader ambitions for Reachy 2 and the way forward for open-source robotics.
“We imagine robotics may very well be the subsequent interface for AI—and it must be open, inexpensive, and hackable,” the corporate stated. “Our imaginative and prescient: a future the place everybody from the group can construct and management their very own robotic companions as an alternative of counting on closed, costly black packing containers.”
Whereas Reachy 2 is at the moment geared toward analysis establishments, Hugging Face’s funding in humanoid robotics means that the machines may play a bigger function within the evolution of open-source AI.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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