Elon Musk has shared a video showcasing Tesla’s Optimus robot successfully walking on uneven terrain. The video, which was originally posted on X by Tesla with the caption “Daily walks help clear your mind,” demonstrates the robot navigating up and down mulch-covered hills. While reposting the video, Musk emphasised that Optimus achieved this using neural networks to control its limbs, rather than relying on remote human operation. This highlights the robot’s increasing ability to adapt to real-world environments.
Take a look at the video here
What Musk said about Optimus’ latest features
In his post, Musk highlighted Optimus’ key abilities and wrote: “Optimus can now walk on highly variable ground using neural nets to control its electric limbs. Join @Tesla if you want to work on interesting real-world AI systems.”
Milan Kovac, Tesla’s Vice President of Optimus Engineering, also reposted the video, pointing out that the robot was balancing without relying on video input, as it technically couldn’t see. He also mentioned slipping on the same spots where Optimus is seen walking and slipping, emphasising the challenging nature of the terrain. He also shared a link to the careers page of Tesla for interested users who want to contribute to the Optimus project.
Kovac wrote: “Tesla is where real-world AI is happening. These runs are on mulched ground, where I’ve myself slipped before. What’s really crazy here is that for these, Optimus is actually blind! Keeping its balance without video (yet), only other on-board sensors are consumed by a neural net running in ~2-3ms on its embedded computer.
More exciting work happening on:
– adding Vision so it can better plan ahead
– making the gait look more natural on such rough terrain
– making it more responsive to velocity/direction commands
– learning how to fall to minimise damage when unavoidable (and stand back up)
Join us to work on fascinating reinforcement learning, imitation learning, foundation nets for robotics & more to bring Optimus to everyone fast. We’re doing it.”
Later on, replying to Kovic, Musk wrote: “I forgot to mention that Optimus was doing this while “blindfolded”. We haven’t yet made vision part of the control loop for uneven terrain. Optimus robots are regularly cruising around our workplace in Palo Alto where vision is used for static & dynamic object avoidance.”
Tesla continues to make progress with its Optimus humanoid robot, showcasing its evolving capabilities through regular updates. Recent demonstrations include Optimus catching a tennis ball with a new hand design and pouring drinks. While still under development, Optimus is already being used for simple tasks in Tesla factories. Musk anticipates that Optimus will be able to catch a tennis ball autonomously by next year and that mass production may begin by 2026, with external deliveries starting before 2027.