At a Toyota facility, robots move heavy metal. Yaskawa’s robots coexisting in factories with human employees. Rikei Corporation creates digital twin tools to support planning in order to virtually promote initiatives such as these.
As if that weren’t enough, Seven & i Holdings, a diverse retail holding firm, is improving consumer experiences by using digital twin simulations.
With the help of NVIDIA Omniverse, Isaac, and Metropolis, physical and industrial AI are advancing Japan’s industrial behemoths into the future. This week’s NVIDIA AI Summit Japan features such groundbreaking innovations in robotic manipulation, industrial inspection, and digital twins for human aid.
The timing of generative AI-driven robotics advancements couldn’t be more ideal. Japan needs advanced robots owing to its shrinking population. A Japan Times analysis predicts an 11 million employment gap by 2040.
Today, a three-computer solution that facilitates robot AI model training, testing, simulation, and deployment is speeding up industrial and physical AI-based systems.
Looking Into the Future With Toyota Robotics
To enhance its metal forging capabilities, Toyota is using NVIDIA Omniverse for physics simulation for robot motion and grip. The time needed to train robots to move forging materials is being shortened as a result.
Toyota is confirming that it can accurately replicate their robotic job handling and robot movements using NVIDIA PhysX with Omniverse. Building physical AI to power next-generation autonomous systems requires the ability to model digital twins of factories and other settings that faithfully replicate the physical properties of real-world items and systems. NVIDIA Omniverse makes this possible.
Toyota can simulate mass attributes, gravity, and friction using Omniverse so that test results may be compared to physical representations. Manipulation and robot motion may benefit from this.
For problems requiring a high level of competence, it also enables Toyota to use robots to mimic the knowledge of its top staff. Additionally, since industrial workers are not obliged to operate in the hot temperatures and hostile conditions typical of metal-forging manufacturing lines, it improves safety and productivity.
Driving Automation, Yaskawa Harnesses NVIDIA Isaac
Yaskawa is a well-known worldwide robotics producer with over 600,000 sold and about 200 different robot types, including collaborative, dual-arm, and industrial robots for the automotive sector.
With its MOTOMAN NEXT adaptable robot, the leading robotics company in Japan is entering new areas by advancing task adaption, variety, and flexibility. Yaskawa’s adaptive robots, powered by cutting-edge robotics made possible by the NVIDIA Isaac and Omniverse platforms, are aimed at automating the food, logistics, healthcare, and agricultural sectors.
Yaskawa is adding AI to its industrial arm robots so they can do a variety of industrial automation tasks by using NVIDIA Isaac Manipulator, a standard workflow comprising NVIDIA-accelerated libraries and AI models.
For accurate 6D posture estimate and tracking, Yaskawa uses FoundationPose. Yaskawa’s robotic arms are more flexible and efficient thanks to their AI models, and their motion control allows for a sim-to-real transfer, making them useful for completing challenging jobs in a variety of sectors.
Yaskawa uses Omniverse-based NVIDIA Isaac Sim digital twins and robotics simulations to save time and money. This will speed up the development and implementation of Yaskawa’s robotic solutions.
Creating Customer Experiences at Seven & i Holdings With Omniverse, Metropolis
One of the most diverse retail holdings corporations in Japan is Seven & I Holdings. Using digital simulation, the Japanese retail corporation conducts a proof of concept to comprehend consumer behavior at its retail locations.
In order to better understand how its retail locations operate, Seven & i Holdings is advancing its research efforts by using NVIDIA Omniverse and NVIDIA Metropolis. Store operations are examined using computer vision models using NVIDIA Metropolis, a suite of developer tools for creating vision AI applications, which contributes to increased productivity and security. Using Blender assets and SideFX Houdini animations, an NVIDIA Omniverse based program creates a digital replica of this setting.
It may provide practical behavioral insights about retail settings and consumer interactions by combining digital twins with pricing recognition, item tracking, and other AI-based processing. Personalized advertisements may be dynamically generated and shown on customer-targeted digital signage displays using this information.
The company intends to react to consumer preferences based on data in a way never seen before by using Metropolis and the NVIDIA Merlin recommendation engine architecture to provide personalized recommendations for each individual client.
Virtually Revolutionizing, Rikei Corporation Launches Asset Library for Digital Twins
Rikei Corporation is a systems solutions provider that focuses on extended reality and spatial computing for the industrial industry.
JAPAN USD Factory is a digital twin asset library created by the technology firm especially for the Japanese manufacturing sector. JAPAN USD Factory was created on NVIDIA Omniverse to enable Japanese firms to more easily create digital twins of their factories and warehouses by digitally replicating common materials and equipment found in production facilities around Japan.
In order to increase efficiency using digital twins, Rikei Corporation wants to simplify several phases of design, simulation, and operations for the manufacturing process.
JAPAN USD Factory, which was created using OpenUSD, a global 3D asset exchange, gives developers access to its asset libraries for palettes and racks, facilitating smooth tool and process interaction.
Nvidia Omniverse pricing
Nvidia Omniverse cost depends on user type and subscription package. A summary:
Omniverse for Individuals: Nvidia offers a free version of Omniverse with basic features. This edition suits solo users, freelancers, and personal projects.
Omniverse Enterprise offers expanded functionality for multi-user collaborative workflows for enterprises. Omniverse Enterprise costs $1,800 per user yearly. Companies additionally require a Nucleus server for data sharing and asset management, which costs more:
- The Nucleus server costs $25,000 for small businesses with 25 users.
- Nucleus servers cost $250,000 for large enterprises exceeding 500 users.
Extended Access and Support: Nvidia offers corporate customers RTX Virtual Workstation support, specialized enterprise support, and Blender, Maya, and Unreal Engine connections.
Creative studios and big teams using 3D processes and visualization may use these services for scaled real-time collaboration.
