Neubility Showed Billy, a Humanoid Torso on Wheels

So basically: A Korean delivery-robot company showed a new machine called Billy on Sept. 29. It is a humanoid upper body on four wheels, not a robot that walks. One unit is supposed to sort ingredients in a food plant before the year is over.

What they showed

Neubility CEO Kang Ki-hyuk introduced Billy at KT&G Sangsang Planet in Seoul’s Seongdong district. Seoul Economic Daily was there. Billy has two arms, and each hand has five fingers. Neubility says the upper body can rotate a full circle, and that the robot has 16 joints. The paper lists the size as 1,497 mm tall, 623 mm wide, and 860 mm deep.

In the demo, Billy drove about 4 meters, picked a box off a shelf 1.5 meters high with both arms, turned 180 degrees, and put the box in a bin on its back.

Neubility already makes autonomous delivery robots. Billy is its move into arms and hands. The company says the robot is built to drive itself around a workplace and do simple carry tasks, using a model that looks at the room and picks a task instead of only replaying a fixed script.

Where it goes next

Billy is set for proof-of-concept tests at four companies, including CJ CheilJedang. Under that deal, one Billy goes to a food plant this year to sort ingredients. Neubility says it wants several hundred units at work sites within one to two years. That is a target, not an order book. No price was announced.

My take

Wheels plus a torso is a smaller bet than a robot that has to balance on two legs. Neubility is selling that smaller bet as the faster way into a plant. The number that counts is still one machine, in one food plant, later this year. Several hundred is what the CEO hopes comes after that works.