The company stated that it has currently produced approximately 10 Optimus robots. However, because even the actuators of the Optimus require redesign and customization, this component is becoming a significant challenge limiting Tesla's production capacity.
Musk anticipates that Tesla may not be able to resolve this issue until November of this year, but with the adoption of new components, they will quickly conduct driving tests and plan to carry out practical testing at the Tesla factory next year.
Why is Tesla, a globally renowned company, struggling with such a small actuator component? Will the confirmation that Tesla's humanoid robots will utilize this novel actuator component bring about a new boom in the industry chain?
0 1 Changes brought about by biomimetic design
Tesla's humanoid robot has a total of 28 joints, including three types of rotary actuators and three types of linear actuators. Rotary actuators are mainly used in joints such as the shoulder and hip that require large-angle rotation, while linear actuators are mainly used in single-degree-of-freedom joints such as the knee and elbow that have small swing angles, as well as two compact two-degree-of-freedom joints such as the wrist and ankle.
Research indicates that Tesla's humanoid robot employs these two actuator components because motion actuators have high torque and thrust density. This is a typical "small-to-large" technology in the field of robotics, enabling the robot to have a lighter weight and a certain load-bearing capacity.
Tesla's decision to use different actuators in different parts was based on consideration of actual application scenarios.
This represents a completely new biomimetic design concept, which also makes it difficult for Tesla to complete through the traditional industrial parts development process.
For example, if Tesla's humanoid robot wants to have high dynamic response capabilities and long battery life in scenarios such as the home, then adopting an electric drive system seems inevitable.
Because a humanoid robot capable of operating for several hours necessitates prioritizing energy efficiency and low energy consumption. Electric drive combined with biomimetic muscle-based transmission is currently the most proven and advantageous method in the world.
A closer look at the way Tesla robots walk reveals that their movement is primarily driven by linear actuators located on their thighs, which move their knee joints. The end effectors are generally quite slender and lightweight.
Behind this, the linear actuator in the leg plays a crucial role. Because the linear actuator can convert the rotational motion of the motor into linear motion through the lead screw mechanism, thereby achieving linear displacement of the mechanical device.
Linear drive has the greatest reverse driving force, which can keep the body in one position with a small amount of torque or force, thus having a stable load and low energy consumption, similar to muscle movement that can maintain a certain state stably for a long time.
This biomimetic design reduces the weight of the extremities and shifts the overall center of gravity forward, bringing the center of gravity closer to the torso. This significantly improves the flexibility of the limbs and further reduces the overall energy consumption.
Tesla was not the first company to discover the advantages of this linear actuator solution and attempt to utilize it.
Back in 2019, Intime Robotics, a domestic core component manufacturer of robots, launched a humanoid five-fingered dexterous hand, which actually adopted a linear actuator plus rigid linkage structure.
This humanoid five-fingered dexterous hand has 6 degrees of freedom and 12 joints, sub-millimeter positioning accuracy and a load capacity of several kilograms, and can simulate the human hand to achieve precise grasping operations.
The secret to achieving this lies in its six integrated miniature servo electric cylinders. These miniature servo electric cylinders, with their integrated drive and control design, are extremely small in size but have a high power density and an accuracy of ±0.02mm. Through the built-in force sensor, the dexterous hand also combines reliability and control flexibility.
If Tesla's actuators are disassembled, they are actually composed of a variety of components. According to their functional principles and value, they are mainly composed of the "four main components" such as transmission device, drive device, sensing device, and control device, as well as "auxiliary components" such as brakes and bearings.
The micro servo electric cylinder technology represented by Time Robot is very similar to the technical approach taken by Tesla linear actuators. It is also an integrated motion unit that integrates servo motors, reducers, lead screws, sensors and drivers, and has the technical characteristics of high precision and large load.
Previously, it was reported that InTime Robotics, with its profound understanding of micro servo electric cylinder technology, excellent system integration, and rich expansion capabilities, is expected to become one of the core suppliers for the mass production of humanoid robots in the future.
Because the micro servo electric cylinder is essentially a linear actuator, it coincides with Tesla's actuator philosophy.
The dexterous hand, with a linear actuator as its core component, has been proven in multiple laboratories to possess remarkably low power consumption, high precision, and high stability, making it one of the few products globally capable of achieving similar performance. Furthermore, because most of the components are independently developed and manufactured, the cost of the dexterous hand at InTime Robotics has been significantly reduced.
Of course, if we take the current products of Time Robot as a successful case, it also proves that the actuator solution technology route adopted by Tesla is expected to truly achieve a balance between the size, weight and power of the parts in terms of body layout, improve limb flexibility, motion reusability, and complete the functional expansion.
This also means that miniature servo electric cylinders manufactured with linear actuators as their core are very likely to become the next hot trend in robot components.
0 2 Finding ways to break through bottlenecks
According to information obtained by Robotics Lecture Hall, the mass production challenges Tesla is currently facing with actuators are very likely concentrated on the planetary roller screw, a specific component. This is very similar to the bottleneck encountered by Intime Robotics a few years ago when it was developing miniature servo electric cylinders.
According to the CTO of Intime Robotics, the company began basic research and development on key technologies required for miniature electric cylinders in 2016. In 2018, in order to develop servo electric cylinder products with global competitiveness, Intime Robotics focused on miniature planetary roller screw technology and invested significant resources in tackling the technical challenges.
Planetary roller screws have very typical advantages: high efficiency, excellent load-bearing capacity and rigidity, reliability and long service life, which allows them to play a better role in linear actuators.
However, the development of planetary roller screws requires very high-quality production equipment and has a difficult manufacturing process. Originally, they were mostly used in the military and aerospace fields. The market barriers are high and the degree of mass production is low, so there are few developers worldwide and the cost has remained high.
At that time, only some companies in Europe and the United States were able to produce planetary roller screws. Customization was very expensive, which made the cost of a single micro servo electric cylinder reach tens of thousands of yuan, making it difficult to meet the requirements of mass production and cost control.
After examining the global market, InTime Robotics predicts that with the global trend towards smaller and more intelligent equipment, the robotics, automotive, semiconductor, and medical industries will all have a high demand for this new type of product that is small in size, high in precision, and high in power density.
Based on this trend, Intime Robotics invested heavily in its early stages, purchasing various production and processing equipment to independently produce and develop more promising micro servo electric cylinders, starting from the component level. During this period, it developed ball screw transmission technology, represented by planetary roller ball screws, micro reduction technology, force and position sensing technology, and servo control technology.
As it turns out, the time-based robot's decision-making is highly forward-looking.
Through years of process innovation and design optimization, product definition, component integration, design reconstruction, and computational integration, the technology of Time Robot has gradually matured, and has completed the full integration of all aspects of micro servo electric cylinders, including design, process, production, and assembly, and has achieved mass production.
It is understood that InTime Robotics has now been able to highly integrate brushless motors, planetary reducers, planetary roller screws, absolute position detection sensors, force sensors and drive control circuits into a complete modular solution, fully adapting to the diversified and easy-to-use development trend of servo control systems.
Meanwhile, the modular solution is easy to install, maintain, and replace, further meeting customers' requirements for rapid development, ease of use, and easy replacement.
As one of the few companies in the world to have mastered the mass production technology of micro planetary roller screws, Intime Robotics has been able to mass produce micro planetary roller screws with a nut diameter of less than 10mm and has applied this technology to the drive design of dexterous hands.
Planetary roller screws have a higher power density than other types of screw products, and their overall drive efficiency is about three times that of traditional screw solutions, thus greatly improving the grip strength of dexterous hands. The emergence of small-sized planetary roller screws can ensure that miniature servo electric cylinders are smaller in size while achieving greater push and pull forces.
Currently, Time Robots plans to further reduce production costs and consolidate the global competitiveness of its products through wider mass production.
Based on accurate product positioning and years of customer accumulation, Intime Robotics has developed a mature system for its miniature servo electric cylinder series products. These products are widely used in high-precision medical devices, industrial automation, and other fields, meeting the vertical needs of different types of customers. Intime Robotics is also constantly monitoring market changes and will continue to develop more adaptable new products to meet the needs of even more customers in the future.
0 3 Further Future
InTime Robotics believes that with substantial R&D investment, Tesla's humanoid robot development will inevitably accelerate. Forward design will bring far greater product capabilities and freedom than standard modules, making it easier for Tesla's humanoid robots to overcome the performance limitations of components, achieving significant improvements in functionality and cost compared to the past.
The CTO of Intime Robotics also revealed to Robot Lecture Hall that, based on years of technological reserves, Intime Robotics is actively developing servo electric cylinders with a wider range of applications and will continue to develop new products with market competitiveness in the future.
As a brand-new core component of robots, miniature servo electric cylinders have been proven to help companies with precision control needs but limited by equipment size to achieve automation transformation. In addition, this product has wide applications in fields such as medical and aerospace. It can be said that it has a wide range of cross-industry applications and very strong horizontal extension capabilities. The market value of this product and related industrial chains may be worth further study.
