We when I paid a visit to NVIDIA’s Bay Area headquarters, back in October for an interviw with Deepu Talla. For more than a decade, Talla has been the chip giant’s Vice President and General Manager – Embedded & Edge Computing. He offers a unique insight into the state of robotics in 2023 and where thing are headed in the future. Over the past several years, NVIDIA has established itself a major platform for robotics simulation, prototyping and deployment. What role(s) will generative AI play in the future of robotics? We’re already seeing productivity improvements with generative AI across industries. Clearly, GenAI’s impact will be transformative across robotics from simulation to design and more.

• Simulation: Models will be able to accelerate simulation development, bridging the gaps between 3D technical artists and developers, by building scenes, constructing environments and generating assets. These GenAI assets will see increased use for synthetic data generation, robot skills training and software testing.
• Multimodal AI: Transformer-based models will improve the ability of robots to better understand the world around them, allowing them to work in more environments and complete complex tasks.
• Robot (re)programming: Greater ability to define tasks and functions in simple language to make robots more general/multipurpose.
• Design: Novel mechanical designs for better efficiency — for example, end effectors.

What are your thoughts on the humanoid form factor? Designing autonomous robots is hard. Humanoids are even harder. Unlike most AMRs that mainly understand floor-level obstacles, humanoids are mobile manipulators that will need multimodal AI to understand more of the environment around them. An incredible amount of sensor processing, advanced control and skills execution is required.

Full interview : Deepu Talla, Nvidia’s VP and GM for Embedded and Edge Computing answers questions on generative AI’s roles in robotics, designing humanoid robots, platforms, and more.