Toyota, Nvidia, Ready Robotics Create Industrial Robot Simulator

Toyota, Ready Robotics and Nvidia are collaborating on a new industrial robotics system that Toyota said will be “groundbreaking” for safety and efficiency at its manufacturing sites. 

Under the partnership, Toyota will deploy Ready Robotics’ industrial operating system for robotics, ForgeOS, alongside Nvidia’s robotics simulator Isaac Sim to create a holistic robotic programming system for production lines. 

Using ForgeOS, the welding processes at Toyota’s manufacturing sites can be programmed in a simulated environment before real-life deployment, reducing the risks associated with the typically tricky process.

The process can also be updated and modified in the simulation in real-time, before being transferred to the live production. Operators can also relay real-time production data from the factory floor to the original simulation, creating a digital twin to enable greater insight into operations. 

According to Ready Robotics, integrating Nvidia’s Isaac Sim simulator into its system enhances the visual clarity of the virtual world, bringing “unprecedented realism” to the simulations. 

The collaborators say the project will create a “new frontier” for how robotic automation capabilities are programmed and deployed.

"We are looking towards a future where machine learning and AI allow for advancements in our manufacturing processes,” said Kazuhiro Suzuki, Toyota’s group manager of its materials development division. “But everything starts with improving our current processes, all while simultaneously extracting the data out of the factory into simulation where it is useful.”

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"Simulating industrial processes in high fidelity prior to their real-world deployment can greatly improve productivity and safety while reducing costs," said Deepu Talla, Nvidia’s vice president of embedded and edge computing. "The collaboration between Toyota and Ready Robotics is a great example of the pioneering use of technology, such as Nvidia Isaac Sim, to unlock industrial digitalization possibilities in manufacturing."