Agility Robotics Wants To Make 500 Humanoid Robots Safe, Not Just One

Agility Robotics and FORT Robotics are working together enhance the safety system for Digit 5, Agility’s next-generation humanoid robot designed to work right alongside people with no safety cage. The calling card for Digit 5 is “no more safety cages:” a humanoid that can work in close proximity to humans. But the future likely isn’t just one humanoid operating in a factory. So the question becomes: how do you make a whole humanoid fleet safe for humans to be around?

“Digit 5 is already designed to operate safely in close proximity to humans,” the Agility spokesperson told me via email. “Agility will unite its AI-based cooperative safety system for Digit 5 with a trifecta of ‘outside in’ safety approaches from FORT to add a second, independent layer of protection that supports continuity of safety coverage as a deployment grows from one robot to a fleet.”

Digit 5’s onboard safety systems include safe human detection, safety cues and safe motion control. FORT, which Agility has been work with for years, is contributing an “outside in” approach in three parts: a safety pendant for nearby robot attendants, on-robot communications, and off-robot interfaces that connect Digit 5 units with safety systems already installed in a customer’s facility.

The pendant is a physical device that a nearby human robot manager can use to shut down Digit 5 in an emergency. It also includes a hold-to-run switch in which the robot will proceed for as long as the robot manager is pressing the button, something that would be useful when the robot is operating in dangerous, fragile, or otherwise awkward environments. Digit 5 works autonomously during normal operations, so the pendant is an extra layer for monitoring and manual override.

Another piece is the Offboard Safety Bridge, which FORT and Agility built together. It extends Digit’s safety logic beyond the robot’s own sensors to the environment around it.