Agility Robotics shows off latest advances for Digit humanoid

Digit humanoid demonstrates its latest functionality at ProMat 2025. Source: Agility Robotics

At ProMat last month, Agility Robotics Inc. unveiled new capabilities for Digit that the company said expand the humanoid robot’s utility for its growing user base.

“These upgrades allow Agility to expand Digit’s capabilities to meet our expanding commercial and customer needs,” stated Melonee Wise, chief product officer at Agility Robotics. “Together, they reinforce our commitment to cooperative safety, and demonstrate a path for Digit and human colleagues to one day work side by side.”

Salem, Ore.-based Agility Robotics said its robot is designed to augment the human workforce. Digit was named the 2024 RBR50 Robot of the Year for being the first humanoid to begin commercial trials and deployments in warehouses and manufacturing facilities.

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Agility Robotics adds features

Working closely with customers, Agility Robotics designed features that it said will support rapid and scaled deployment of Digit fleets, including:

• Expanded and more efficient battery power with a duration of up to four hours
• Autonomous docking onto charging stations
• Streamlined manufacturing of the bipedal, multipurpose mobile manipulation robot (MMR)
• New robust limbs and end effectors, giving Digit a wider range of grasping angles and unlocking new use cases with expanded possibilities for manipulation

Digit integrated with AMRs

“Humanoid robots should be designed to work alongside autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), not replace them, and Digit is no exception,” noted Agility Robotics. “Humanoids excel at complex manipulation, grasping, and navigating human-centric spaces, while AMRs are masters of efficient transportation over longer distances.”

Digit can autonomously dispatch an AMR to deliver items to locations such as packout stations. This reduces the need for constant human intervention, maximizing efficiency and allowing workers to focus on more complex tasks, the company said. It has been working with AMR providers to enable this communcation.

Agility said its Arc cloud robotic platform now can call and dispatch AMRs. Digit has already been working alongside AMRs at its deployment with GXO Logistics near Atlanta. The company also demonstrated integration with AMRs from Mobile Industrial Robots and Zebra Technologies at ProMat in Chicago.

New robots address safety concerns

Standards exist for machine and robot safety, but safety standards for “dynamically stable industrial mobile robots” such as Digit that require balancing are still in the development. Agility Robotics said it is working on cooperative safety applications to meet the standards of OSHA-regulated environments necessary for humanoids to work alongside humans.

The company asserted that the latest version of Digit adheres to safety standards for industrial mobile robots. Agility said the new features represent a significant step toward deploying cooperative safety applications.

Digit’s enhanced user interface now features at-a-glance, front and back displays that help monitor Wi-Fi status, connectivity, connection to Agility Arc, battery levels and maintenance ports, making it easier to monitor and manage the robot.

The new safety features include:

• A Category 1, or CAT1 stop, which maintains power to the machine actuators during the deceleration process, allowing the machine to stop smoothly and safely before a shutdown.
• A safety programmable logic controller (PLC) provides safety functions that meet Performance Level d (PLd).
• An emergency stop or E-stop button on a robot is designed to immediately halt all robot movements and operations in case of an emergency. Its main purposes include preventing accidents, ensuring worker safety, complying with safety regulations, protecting equipment, and providing quick response control.
• FailSafe over EtherCAT (FSoE) is a safety protocol used in robotics and industrial automation to ensure safe communication between devices over an EtherCAT network. It enables the transmission of safety-critical data, such as emergency stop signals and sensor feedback, while also maintaining real-time performance.

Agility Robotics said it is committed to safety and is working to comply with multiple standards as it develops robots to eventually work alongside people.

Agility Arc provides control in the cloud

Agility Arc is a cloud-based platform that gives customers control of their automation for a wide range of logistics and manufacturing workflows. Agility claimed that it is the first humanoid fleet management system to successfully integrate and deploy humanoid robots in a commercial environment.

As part of its latest features, Agility Arc allows customers to communicate with AMRs and their corresponding platforms. Other new Agility Arc features include:

• Digit support
• Charger support
• Workcell EMS support
• Easy webhook integration
• Remote monitor, support, and maintenance of Digit and all accessories
• Continued and expanded Enterprise Systems Integration (MES, WMS, WES, PLC)

At ProMat, Digit demonstrated new use cases – including those integrated with AMRs – such as stacking and unstacking of totes, goods-to-person (G2P) or Unit Sorter, AMR loading and unloading, palletizing and depalletizing, nesting, flowrack and carts, and automated putwall.