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What is Physical AI?

Bridging the Digital and Physical Worlds​

Focus and Theme: AI Systems in the Physical World. Embodied Intelligence.

Goal: This course aims to bridge the gap between the digital brain and the physical body. You will learn to apply your AI knowledge to control Humanoid Robots in both simulated and real-world environments.

A New Frontier for AI​

The future of Artificial Intelligence is not confined to our screens; it extends into the physical world we inhabit. This capstone quarter introduces you to the exciting field of Physical AI—AI systems that can perceive, reason, and act in real-world environments, governed by the laws of physics.

Throughout this course, you will learn to:

  • Design intelligent robotic systems.
  • Simulate their behavior in realistic environments.
  • Deploy them to interact with the world in a human-like manner.

We will be using industry-standard tools such as ROS 2, Gazebo, and NVIDIA Isaac.

Why Physical AI Matters​

Humanoid robots are on the verge of revolutionizing our world. Because they share our physical form, they are uniquely positioned to excel in our human-centered environments. They can learn from the vast amount of data generated by human interaction, a significant leap from AI models that are confined to digital realms. This is the dawn of embodied intelligence.

Learning Outcomes​

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Understand the core principles of Physical AI and embodied intelligence.
  • Master the Robot Operating System (ROS 2) for robotic control.
  • Simulate robots in Gazebo and Unity.
  • Develop with the NVIDIA Isaac AI robot platform.
  • Design humanoid robots for natural and intuitive interactions.
  • Integrate GPT models for conversational robotics.