Industrial AI Podcast Industrial AI Hardware: Shadow Robot Company
Jun 19, 2024
CEO of Shadow Robot Company, Rich Walker, discusses advancements in AI hardware, robotic hand design, and collaboration with Google DeepMind. They explore innovative sensor technologies, cost-effective solutions, and plans for integrating robotic hands into systems for real-world applications.
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Hardware Unlocks Real-World AI
- Hardware advances enable new AI capabilities by making previously virtual successes real-world feasible.
- Shadow Robot focused on resilient, high-quality hardware rather than embedding heavy AI in the hand itself.
From Simulation To Messy Reality
- The current shift is moving AI from simulated tasks into messy real-world robotics problems.
- Manipulation remains hard because real contact, collisions, and diverse objects break classical avoidance-based control.
Make Hardware Training-Proof
- Design robot hardware to survive aggressive, noisy learning experiments so reinforcement learning can run safely.
- Test durability extensively (pistons, bats, collisions) to enable long training runs without constant breakage.