What is the power consumption of these robots? I often wonder how limited and viable autonomous robots really are. When I look at Tesla's Optimus or Boston Dynamics' spectacular robots, how quickly do they need to be recharged?

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ovi256 a day ago | parent | next [-]

> Cheetah robot can run 10.3 km with a 3 kg (465 Whrs) LiPo Battery

> the 33kg robot runs at 22 km/h (6 m/s). The total power consumption from the battery pack was 973 watts and resulted in a total cost of transport of 0.5, which rivals running animals’ at the same scale. The 76% of total energy consumption is attributed to heat loss from the motor, and the 24% is used in mechanical work

Cheetah was the robot built by Ben Katz, which then went on to electrify Boston Dynamics' dog.

Given we've had no major energy density or motor efficiency breakthroughs since 2015, I bet the above still holds. That's a 30 min run at full throttle BTW. So to escape the current killer bots, try to run above a 2h marathon pace for 30 minutes.

Source: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/108096/Effici...

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hinkley 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

My understanding is that those motors he uses are pretty special. And I would expect “efficient” to be part of that special. You’re optimizing for torque and accuracy per unit of mass and energy in this sort of space. I know he talked about them in earlier videos but I no longer recall the details.

	▲	einrealist 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Aside from the onboard computing required to power the AI model controlling the robot, which also consumes energy, it is important to be as efficient as possible. However, if an Optimus is intended to replace human labour, such as lifting objects and wander around with it, the energy efficiency of the platform becomes negligible. The platform in the video and the robot dogs from Boston Dynamics are ideal for tasks where they are only limited by their own weight and the amount of computing power required to navigate, such as exploration. I suppose that's why we mostly see autonomous delivery robots on wheels. Or maybe I am being too pessimistic about other platforms...