Toyota Deploys Humanoid Robots in Canadian Factories
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada has signed a commercial agreement with Agility Robotics to deploy seven "Digit" humanoid robots in its manufacturing plants. The robots will assist with material handling and other repetitive logistics tasks on the factory floor. The move represents a significant real-world integration of advanced robotics in automotive manufacturing.
- The Digit robot stands 175 cm (5' 9") tall, weighs 63.5 kg (140 lbs), and can carry a payload of up to 16 kg (35 lbs). It navigates using a sensor suite that includes LiDAR and four Intel RealSense depth cameras. - Agility Robotics, the creator of Digit, was founded in 2015 as a spin-off from Oregon State University's Dynamic Robotics Lab by Jonathan Hurst, Damion Shelton, and Mikhail Jones. - The company is constructing "RoboFab," a 70,000-square-foot factory in Salem, Oregon, with the capacity to produce more than 10,000 humanoid robots annually. - This deployment is part of a Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) agreement, a model where Toyota pays for the use of the robots as a service rather than purchasing them outright. The robots will be managed by Agility's cloud-based fleet orchestration platform, Agility Arc. - Prior to the Toyota deal, Digit robots were already being tested or deployed by other major companies, including Amazon and logistics provider GXO, which uses them in a Spanx warehouse. - This move is part of a broader trend in the automotive industry, with companies like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Tesla also testing and deploying humanoid robots from competitors such as Figure AI and Apptronik. - Agility Robotics has raised over $180 million in funding from investors that include DCVC, Playground Global, and the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund. - Toyota has a long history of robotics research and investment, including the 2017 launch of its T-HR3 humanoid robot, the Welwalk rehabilitation robot, and a $1 billion investment in the Toyota Research Institute for AI and robotics.
