Plenty of noise in the humanoid robotics space is coming from China of late. There’s a little in the US and some in Russia, but we weren’t expecting to hear about Italy-based Generative Bionics’ Gene.01 in relation to working on manufacturing ships.
Generative Bionics has announced a new partnership with Italian shipbuilders Fincantieri, which will see the pair developing an autonomous humanoid robot intended to work alongside human welders. Fincantieri certainly seems keen on an AI/robotics-focused future, if the company’s website is any indication.
The selfish Gene.01?
And so are Generative Bionics, even if we have yet to see their Gene 01 unit in proper action. The Italian company, based in Genova, hopes that its “industrial partnership aimed at implementing a humanoid welding robot” will “[increase] safety and operational efficiency, [improve] production quality, and [enhance] the sustainability of work in shipyards.”
The terms of the four-year project will hopefully see Generative Bionics produce an AI-laden humanoid robot with advanced mobility and manipulation functions, plus AI-driven perception and vision capability intended to let the ‘bots monitor welding seams during ship production. Both Fincantieri and Generative Bionics expect the first on-site tests to happen by the end of this year.
Following that, further refinements and industrial certification are planned. Fincantieri’s Sestri Ponente shipyard will serve as the test-bed for Gene.01 or whichever later incarnation inherits the task of building ocean-going craft. Fincantieri, in particular, seems serious about this. The company has several other robotics initiatives going on at present.
By the sound of things, the humanoid robots will be used as monitoring devices at first. Should either company manage to teach Gene.01 to weld, that’ll be worth seeing.
