Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
eWEEK.com
Search
eWEEK.com
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Innovation
    • Innovation

    Nvidia Builds Isaac Platform for Intelligent Robots

    By
    JEFFREY BURT
    -
    June 4, 2018
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      Nvidia Jetson

      Nvidia is rolling out a platform designed to bring greater artificial intelligence to robots in a wide range of industries and which is only the latest step by the company to make its GPUs the central computing technology for machine learning and other modern workloads.

      The chip maker introduced the platform, named Isaac, over the weekend at the Computex show in Taiwan, with officials saying it will be the foundation of future autonomous machines—such as industrial robots and drones—in such sectors as manufacturing, construction, agriculture and logistics. The platform is based on Nvidia’s Jetson Xavier (pictured), a computer designed specifically for robots, with six different kinds of processors, more than 9 billion transistors and a performance of more than 30 TOPS (trillion operations per second).

      Jetson Xavier has more processing capabilities than a powerful workstation but uses a third of the energy of a lightbulb, according to Nvidia officials.

      “AI is the most powerful technology force of our time,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who introduced Isaac at the show, said in a statement. “Its first phase will enable new levels of software automation that boost productivity in many industries. Next, AI, in combination with sensors and actuators, will be the brain of a new generation of autonomous machines.”

      The rapid growth of AI and such components as machine learning, deep learning and neural networks is fueling a wave of innovation that promises to change the way operations are done in a wide array of industries. Intelligent robots and other autonomous machines—such as self-driving vehicles—will play key roles in those changes. According to a report by Loup Ventures, the industrial robot market will grow 11.8 percent a year through 2025, when it will hit $33.8 billion. Thirty-four percent of the industrial robots sold by then will be collaborative machines—which Loup referred to as “co-bots”—made to work safely alongside humans in such settings as factories and warehouses.

      A growing number of tech vendors, including CA Technologies, are putting a greater focus on collaborative robotics.

      Nvidia executives several years ago said the company would target AI, machine learning and similar modern workloads as key growth areas for its GPUs, which have the parallel computing capabilities many of these applications need. Most recently, the company late last month unveiled the HGX-2, a server platform for both high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads. Also in May, Nvidia rolled out the Isaac robot simulator to enable robot makers to design and test scenarios for autonomous machines.

      Now the GPU maker has the Isaac software platform for intelligent robots based on Jetson Xavier. The Isaac platform includes a software development kit, which offers a collection of frameworks, APIs and libraries for accelerating the development of algorithms and software for robots. It’s tightly integrated with Isaac Sim, another element in the platform that gives developers a realistic virtual simulation environment for testing, training and iterations. Isaac Intelligent Machine Acceleration (IMX) is a collection of robotics algorithm software developed by Nvidia that address such aspects as perception, navigation, manipulation and control.

      Jetson Xavier is an embedded module system designed for robots, drones and other autonomous systems at the network edge. It comes in operating modes of 10, 15 and 30 watts and delivers 20 times the performance and 10 times the power efficiency of its predecessor, the Jetson TX2, according to company officials. The six kinds of processors on the computer include a Volta Tensor Core GPU, an eight-core, 64-bit Arm-based CPU and two NVDLA deep-learning accelerators.

      In addition, there is an image processor, a vision processor and a video processor. The goal is to enable dozens of algorithms to be processed simultaneously and in real time, which translates into robots that can take in data from its sensors and make the proper decisions based on that data, which is important for ensuring that the machine can work safely next to humans, officials said.

      Early access to the Jetson Xavier developer kit—including the Isaac software—will start in August, with the kit priced at $1,299.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      CHRIS PREIMESBERGER - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      CHRIS PREIMESBERGER - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      EWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      ZEUS KERRAVALA - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      WAYNE RASH - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Info

      © 2020 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×