Figure AI's Retail Expansion, Waymo's Flood Woes, and New Open-Source Humanoids

Figure AI's Retail Expansion, Waymo's Flood Woes, and New Open-Source Humanoids

This week's digest covers Figure AI's new retail logistics partnership, Waymo's service suspensions due to flooding, and the release of Hugging Face's affordable humanoid platform. We also explore new developments in surgical microbots, robot-as-a-service models, and NASA's concept for exploring Saturn's moon.

Industrial & Commercial Deployment

Figure AI enters retail logistics

Figure AI has signed a commercial agreement with Catalyst Brands, the parent company of JCPenney, Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, and Eddie Bauer, to deploy its humanoid robots. The deployment will take place at a newly upgraded logistics hub in Reno, Nevada, where the robots will integrate with the facility's existing sorting and packing systems. This move marks a significant transition for Figure AI, shifting from warehouse testing to active retail operations.

The partnership follows a period of rapid development for the company, including a 200-hour livestream where its Figure 03 units, powered by the Helix-02 model, autonomously sorted 250,000 packages. Figure AI has also reported a substantial increase in production capacity, claiming to have ramped up from building one robot per day to one per hour over the last four months.

For the industry, this deployment serves as a critical test case. While the company has not disclosed the number of robots involved or specific financial terms, the success of this integration will provide essential data on how humanoids perform under the high-pressure demands of real-world retail logistics compared to controlled warehouse environments.

Eden Robotics introduces 'robot-as-a-service' model

Y Combinator-backed startup Eden Robotics has opened pre-orders for its Eden-1, a semi-humanoid robot designed for warehouse and factory tasks. The company is positioning the robot as an on-demand labor solution, offering a pricing model of $10 per hour through its Theta OS platform. This approach aims to eliminate large upfront capital expenditures and complex integration fees for businesses.

The Eden-1 is designed to handle routine picking and packing tasks autonomously, while the Theta OS layer allows the robot to ping remote human 'experts' for assistance when it encounters unfamiliar scenarios. This shared-autonomy model is intended to ensure operational continuity.

By offering robots as a service, Eden Robotics is attempting to lower the barrier to entry for automation in smaller or mid-sized facilities. The founders have stated their long-term goal is to replace a significant portion of manual labor in Western factories by 2030, effectively turning physical work into an on-demand service layer.

Chef Robotics scales nonprofit meal production

San Francisco nonprofit Project Open Hand is utilizing robotic arms from Chef Robotics to address volunteer shortages in its meal preparation operations. The system is currently plating up to 2,500 medically tailored meal kits daily, with robots handling the repetitive portioning tasks while human volunteers focus on quality control and care.

The robotic arms are equipped with interchangeable attachments, allowing them to handle a variety of food items with the precision required for specific dietary needs. The system can plate approximately 300 meals per hour, and currently, one in five meals served in the Tenderloin district is assembled by these robots.

This deployment highlights a growing trend of using flexible robotic automation in non-industrial settings. By automating monotonous assembly tasks, organizations can maintain high output levels despite labor constraints, ensuring that human resources are directed toward more complex, client-facing responsibilities.

Autonomous Systems & Vehicles

Waymo suspends service in four cities due to flooding

Waymo has suspended its robotaxi operations in Atlanta, San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston following a series of incidents where vehicles entered flooded roadways. These suspensions occur despite a software recall issued by the company the previous week, which was intended to address safety concerns related to weather conditions.

The company acknowledged that it had not yet developed a final remedy for the issue when the recall was issued, having initially relied on geofencing restrictions in high-risk areas. The incidents, including an unoccupied vehicle becoming stuck in Atlanta and another being swept into a creek in San Antonio, suggest that current autonomous systems are struggling to adapt to weather events that outpace official warning systems.

These operational failures present a significant challenge for Waymo's expansion strategy. With the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) monitoring the situation, the company faces increased pressure to demonstrate that its vehicles can reliably navigate adverse weather conditions without human intervention.

Research & Innovation

Hugging Face releases $2.5K open-source humanoid

Hugging Face's LeRobot team has launched an open-source, 3D-printable bipedal humanoid platform priced at approximately $2,500. The project is designed to provide researchers and hobbyists with affordable, repairable hardware to accelerate robot learning and locomotion research.

The platform includes a full-stack ecosystem, covering hardware design, simulation tools, real-world calibration, and training pipelines. While the current release focuses on the leg assembly, the roadmap includes upper-body integration and more complex whole-body behaviors. This launch follows the company's recent acquisition of Pollen Robotics and the release of the HOPEJr humanoid.

By lowering the cost of entry, Hugging Face aims to remove the bottleneck of expensive, fragile proprietary hardware that has historically limited open robotics research. This initiative could enable a broader community to contribute to advancements in humanoid mobility and control.

NTU develops multi-tool surgical microbot

Researchers at NTU Singapore have developed a seed-sized surgical robot, measuring just 4.4 mm in length, capable of performing multiple tasks within the body. The untethered device is equipped with five distinct tools: a cutter, gripper, drug releaser, sampler, and heat applicator.

The robot utilizes a soft, silicone-based body embedded with magnetic particles, allowing it to respond to external magnetic fields. This design enables the device to roll and crawl with six degrees of motion, navigating soft tissue without causing damage. The prototype is intended for minimally invasive pinhole procedures, where a physician can steer the device to perform various actions without the need to swap instruments.

While the current prototype demonstrates the feasibility of all-in-one micro-surgical tools, the researchers note that the broader vision of deploying swarms of such robots remains a long-term goal. The development represents a step toward more efficient, less invasive surgical interventions.

NASA tests pogo-stick robot for Enceladus

NASA is testing a spring-loaded, one-legged robot named LEAP, designed to explore the icy geysers of Saturn's moon, Enceladus. The prototype, which weighs approximately 2 lbs and stands one foot tall, is engineered to navigate the moon's low-gravity environment through large, controlled hops.

In the weak gravity of Enceladus, the robot is designed to travel up to 560 feet horizontally and 300 feet vertically in a single leap, with significant hang time. The mission concept involves deploying the robot from an 'Orbilander' spacecraft to bound between geyser vents, collecting plume particles for life-detection analysis. The robot balances on a single powered leg, assisted by internal reaction wheels.

This hopping design is a response to the challenging terrain of Enceladus, where traditional wheeled rovers would likely struggle. The project is currently an early-stage concept funded by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, with engineers focused on ensuring the design can withstand the extreme cold and jagged ice surfaces of the moon.