Physical AI Lab // Episode 0.3 // One-pager

See, think, act

One second of a robot's life, in slow motion

Three key points

  1. See: both the image of the outside (a public dataset records 15 frames a second, R) and "itself": the position and pose of its hand (proprioception).
  2. Think: two systems, a slow one that thinks it through and breaks the task down, and a fast one that produces actions (NVIDIA GR00T N1.7, O); in one paper, the robot (π0) thinks again after every 25 steps, about every half second (R).
  3. Act: the control interface exchanges commands at a thousand times a second (one company's FCI, 1 kHz, O), so it can fine-tune in time. Being both fast and accurate is still a long way off.

Evidence: O official · R research · M media

R15 frames/srecording rate of a public robot dataset (images and actions both logged 15 times a second)
OSlow and fastthe dual-system design of GR00T N1.7, an open humanoid robot model: high-level reasoning kept apart from low-level action
R25 steps / half a secondπ0, on robots running at 50 Hz, re-runs inference after executing every 25 actions, about every 0.5 s (paper)
O1,000 per seconda robot company's control interface (FCI) sends and receives low-level control commands at 1 kHz

Further reading