Holiday Robotics’ Friday Steps Ahead: Wheels Over Bipedal Limits

Company Holiday Robotics introduced the humanoid robot Friday to the world, standing 176 cm tall. Unlike the bipedal robots of Boston Dynamics or Tesla’s walking prototypes like Optimus, Friday moves on a wheeled base. “Chinese companies are indeed excelling at mastering walking skills,” noted the head of the company, Song Ki Yo. “But in industrial facilities, most of the value is created by the hands. We focused on the precision of ‘grabbing, turning, and palpating’ rather than walking.”

The robot features hands with 20 degrees of freedom, tactile sensors all over the palm capable of recognizing force weighing about 5 grams with an update frequency of 1900 Hz. The payload capacity is 5 kg per hand, with a proximal payload of up to 20 kg. The company claims such high sensitivity is achieved thanks to the cost-effective design of a magnetic sensor, the production of which costs about $20. This allows the robot to detect contact across the entire surface of the finger and palm, not just the tips, which is critically important for handling fragile or indeterminate objects in factory conditions. Friday can reach speeds up to 1.9 m/s (4 mph) and, most importantly, supports 24/7 continuous operation thanks to hot-swappable batteries. This solves a serious problem for bipedal humanoids, which often struggle to operate for more than an hour. Nevertheless, Holiday Robotics has not completely abandoned walking. The company sees the wheeled base as the fastest pathway to achieving commercial viability (ROI) and plans to test a biped version in December. “The robotics companies that will survive in the next 3-5 years, are those that can commercialize robots,” said Song.