Neubility, a company known for its autonomous delivery robots, unveiled a new semi-humanoid robot and said it aims to become the first in South Korea to commercialize a humanoid robot.
The company introduced the new product, named Billy, on the 29th at KT&G Sangsang Planet in Seoul's Seongdong District. Billy is designed as a humanoid upper body mounted on a four-wheeled drive unit. Each of its two arms is equipped with a robotic hand with five fingers. The upper body can rotate a full 360 degrees. The robot has 16 degrees of freedom, or joints. It measures up to 1,497 millimeters in height, 623 millimeters in width and 860 millimeters in depth.
Neubility demonstrated some of Billy's movements at the event. After appearing on stage, Billy moved forward about 4 meters and used both arms to pick up a box from a two-tier shelf 1.5 meters high. It then rotated its torso 180 degrees to load the box into a storage bin mounted on its back, turned the body back around and exited the stage.
Billy was developed with a focus on mobility and manipulation. Rather than replicating every movement a human can perform, its capabilities are concentrated on moving autonomously and carrying out simple tasks. Instead, Neubility developed a robot artificial intelligence model that allows the machine to recognize the layout of equipment and objects at a work site and decide on appropriate tasks, rather than executing only pre-programmed movements in a limited setting.
Billy is set to undergo proof-of-concept testing at four companies, including CJ CheilJedang. Under the partnership with CJ CheilJedang, one Billy unit will be deployed at a food plant within this year to sort ingredients automatically, testing the potential for larger-scale adoption.
Neubility said it aims to deploy several hundred Billy units at various work sites within one to two years. "Rather than waiting for a general-purpose humanoid robot to be completed, we first connected the mobility and manipulation that work sites need," Neubility CEO Kang Ki-hyuk said. "The top priority is the fastest possible commercialization."
