TL;DRRobot.com launches R-noid, a wheeled humanoid robot for kitchens and warehouses, powered by Physical Intelligence’s AI model.
Robot.com, the San Francisco startup formerly known as Kiwibot, is expanding from campus delivery robots into workplace humanoids. The company told Business Insider it will launch R-noid, a humanoid on wheels designed to package orders, load and unload boxes, and prep workstations across food service, logistics, and healthcare facilities.
CEO Felipe Chavez said the pivot has been nearly two years in the making. “We already have a foot in the door with our delivery robots,” he said, adding that offering manipulation solutions was the natural next step for a company that already has more than 500 robots deployed and has completed over two and a half million tasks.
R-noid is not trying to walk. The robot rides on a holonomic wheeled base instead of legs, with dual seven-degree-of-freedom arms and an articulated torso that gives it vertical reach up to nearly two metres. It joins a growing camp of robotics companies betting that wheels beat legs for practical workplace deployment, trading stair-climbing ability for stability, cost, and faster time to market.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!The dexterity comes from Physical Intelligence, one of the most closely watched AI labs in robotics. According to the company’s official announcement, R-noid runs on Physical Intelligence’s vision-language-action model, which reads natural-language instructions, observes the scene, and produces the arm and hand movements to carry out tasks. Chavez said the company has been developing custom models with Physical Intelligence since last year.
