Agility and FORT Extend Digit 5’s Safety Systems Beyond the Robot

Agility Robotics and FORT Robotics are expanding their safety partnership around Digit 5, with an Offboard Safety Bridge designed to connect the humanoid to external safety systems. The October 1 memorandum of understanding builds on years of collaboration as Agility prepares its next-generation robot for work closer to people.

Key Takeaways

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• The planned architecture combines a safety pendant, on-robot communications and interfaces to external safety systems.
• FORT already supplies technology used in earlier Digits; the partnership expands into joint development, compliance and deployment support.
• The announcement concerns Digit 5's developing safety architecture, rather than a new certification or confirmed deployment.

Connecting the robot to its surroundings

According to the joint announcement, the Offboard Safety Bridge is being developed to complement Digit 5's planned onboard safety systems. Those include human detection, safety cues and safe motion control.

The practical goal is to let safety inputs come from both the robot and the environment around it. That matters as a mobile humanoid moves between work areas and interacts with a facility's wider operations.

The companies also intend to cooperate on hardware development, solutions engineering, regulatory compliance and deployment support. The release does not specify a delivery date for the bridge or announce a new safety certification.

Agility is also working with NVIDIA on its onboard safety architecture. As we reported in June, the collaboration involves integrating IGX Thor and Halos Core into Digit's safe human detection system. FORT is itself part of the Halos ecosystem, developing safety applications using NVIDIA's Outside-In Safety Blueprint. The new FORT announcement focuses on the pendant, communications and external safety interfaces; it does not specify how the Offboard Safety Bridge connects to Halos.

A manual override alongside autonomous work

FORT's role predates this agreement. Agility has incorporated its technology into several previous versions of Digit and commissioned a custom tablet holder earlier this year. That holder, called a pendant sled, integrates emergency-stop and enabling-device functions.

The pendant is intended for monitoring and an additional manual safety override during setup, maintenance or unexpected situations. Agility says Digit 5, like Digit 4, will perform normal work autonomously. The presence of a handheld safety device should therefore not be read as a requirement to teleoperate the robot through its tasks.

The announcement follows Digit 5's September unveiling, where Agility made working in closer proximity to people a central part of the new generation's design.

This partnership adds detail to that plan: supporting safe operation involves the robot's onboard controls, the operator's means of intervention and connections to its surroundings. The next step is demonstrating how those elements work together in customer deployments.