Every mobile robot has the same problem. The arms are too heavy. Too weak. Too dumb…
You bolt on a robot designed for a factory floor and wonder why your AMR’s battery dies in 2 hours.
The payload-to-weight ratio kills you.
The arm weighs 20kg and lifts 5.
Mobile manipulation? A forklift with a wrist!
@2nisi and Dimitris Sako, two brothers in Zurich (@duatic_ag), spent years inside ETH’s Robotic Systems Lab staring at this exact problem.
Their answer: control the muscle.
They built their own Quasi-Direct Drive actuators from scratch.
And an arm around them.
And a robot around the arm.
The DynaArm weighs 9 kg. Lifts 12. IP66. Backdrivable!!! …meaning it feels contact like a human arm does.
Payload-to-weight ratio is inverted….the arm lifts more than itself!
Their Alpha robot puts two of these on a wheeled base that carries 200 kg. Vision-guided. Hot-swappable batteries.
Built for floor-to-shelf, not for selfies at trade shows (even though those are pretty good too).
A machine that actually works in a warehouse.
This is the European robotics playbook done right:
deep hardware R&D → vertical integration → real product.
Watch these two, and their team.
I’m a huge fan of their work! 👋
——
Weekly robotics and AI insights.
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And great to see my friend @2nisi from @duatic_ag on the screen at the robo.innovate booth!
This initiative of the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (@TUM_MIRMI) at the Technical University of Munich (@TU_Muenchen).
It is Bavaria's deep-tech incubator for start-up projects in the field of intelligent robotics & AI.
https://t.co/27UWQYYbjy
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to visit @2nisi at the ETH Robotic System Lab (@leggedrobotic) and see some history - below you can see early versions of @anybotics ANYmal.
Eris and his brother Dimitris Sako are the founders of @duatic_ag, building human-scale robots, also below you’ll see one of their self developed robotic arms.
🇪🇺Europe remains a quiet leader in robotics and AI, home to some of the world’s most advanced research labs.
Thanks again, Eris. Can’t wait to follow what’s coming from your side!
Robotics is in a phase where the new generation is being shaped. The new robotics era will require extremely fast adaptation to any design requirements. The market is so fluid that developing something with a product lifecycle of 10-20 years is extremely challenging.
I am very proud of our engineering team being able to keep up with the speed required in our field.
The PixONE is a product developed to cope with the rapid technological changes in robotics. Many of its features are customizable. Here are some of the most advanced features of the PixONE force torque sensor:
⚙️ A custom electrical interface for easy adaptation to OEM requirements.
⚙️ A generous hole in the center to pass through cables and instruments.
⚙️ 0.01 sensitivity with a bandwidth of 4000 Hz.
⚙️ 5x overload protection.
⚙️ It measures 3 Forces, 3 Torques, 3 Accelerations, 3 Angular rates and internal temperature.
⚙️ Multiprotocol: 100 Mbps Ethernet, RS422/RS485, USB, EtherCAT in/out
@BotaSystems serves the Next Generation of robots today!
Congratulations to @ki_ki_ki1, master of perceptive RL-based legged locomotion, for a successful defense of the thesis “Bridging Perception and Control for Legged Locomotion and Navigation in the Wild".@ETH_en@eth_dmavt@pulkitology
@HoellerDavid Thanks, David! Get ready for even more exciting features coming soon for this robot. The combination of this arm's power with the sensitivity of @BotaSystems' sensors will be a true game-changer.
A 9.2 kg robotic arm that lifts more than its weight and works anywhere? That’s real muscle.
Meet the latest innovation from Duatic AG.
🎙️ I sat down with Duatic Co-Founder Eris Dhionis Sako to talk about how they built it and where it’s heading. ⬇️
✅ Lifts up to 12 kg despite its lightweight build
✅ Controlled with a PlayStation joystick
✅ Built for rough environments like rain and dust
✅ Works great on mobile robots, indoors or out
Small arm, big power.
Credit: Duatic AG
And saying thank you to Eris Dhionis Sako for having me!
Ep 60 - Building Deep Tech:
"Once You Know What You Want to Do, Life Gets Easier."
🎧 On Spotify: https://t.co/EX0vzljj4v
🎧 On Apple Podcast: https://t.co/ZcqssW6wiI
🎬 On YouTube: https://t.co/ZsK3B3zTfc
@perpetualmystik @DeepMind @Nature Perhaps sooner than expected, but not very soon. When this happens we humans, once again, will realize that we are not the center of the universe.
@perpetualmystik @DeepMind @Nature Till recently we could only create tools that could help us enhance our physical capabilities. Isn't it exciting that we are now capable of creating tools that can enhance our intelligence?!