Humanoid Robotics Technology
Figure has announced BotQ, a new high-volume manufacturing facility for humanoid robots designed to produce 12,000 units per year, scaling its fleet to 100,000.
Over the past eight months, Figure’s hardware and manufacturing engineering teams have been building an efficient and scalable manufacturing process from the ground up. They have made the decision to bring the manufacturing of humanoid robots in-house to control the build process, ensure quality, and guarantee the delivery of high-functioning robots to market. Additionally, Figure has been building the underlying software infrastructure to support volume manufacturing, including Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and Warehouse Management Systems (WMS). Notably, Figure’s humanoid robots will be used in their own manufacturing process to build other humanoid robots, with plans to increase line automation over time.
To achieve high production rates, Figure has rethought the robot architecture, moving from prototype designs that utilized complex, slow CNC machining processes to production robots built for affordability and high-volume manufacturing. The new design, Figure 03, employs tooled processes such as injection molding, die casting, metal injection molding, and stamping, enabling significant reductions in both part costs and manufacturing time. This shift has led to the establishment of safety and reliability teams focused on ensuring the robots meet reliability metrics.
Building the supply chain has been a significant focus for Figure, as humanoid robots do not have well-established supply chains. The company has designed almost the entire robot from scratch, including actuators, motors, sensors, battery packs, and electronics. Figure has chosen to focus heavily on the assembly of core technology in-house and leverage external vendors for piece-part manufacturing when necessary. The supply chain is designed to scale to 100,000 robots or 3,000,000 actuators in the next four years.
