Warehouse vehicle supply chain map: who makes each part, and where
The Office of Strategic Capital lends in areas that include robots, batteries and sensors, and reviews a borrower's suppliers for foreign influence. Most magnets and many reducers, cells and cameras come from one country, so a humanoid built from the usual suppliers has makers owned from there at several joints.
The Verdex physical AI map shows the companies at every step of this chain, where their plants are, and how each stands under the rules that apply to the sector. Each step below opens its own page: what happens at that step, who does it, and where.
Materials
- Encoder sensor IC: Hall or magnetoresistive absolute position sensor IC, two per joint.
- Power switches: Si MOSFETs today, GaN entering: six switches per three-phase joint inverter.
- Silicon wafers: 300 mm silicon wafers for the SoC and the image sensors.
Motors and drives
- Position encoders: Magnetic absolute sensor IC (Hall or magnetoresistive) on a PCB facing a magnet ring; one on the motor shaft for commutation, one on the joint output for true angle. Output: two encoders per joint (dual encoder).
- Motor driver: Three-phase inverter (3 half-bridges = 6 switches) + gate driver + MCU on a round PCB inside the joint; 15 to 55 V bus. Output: joint drive board.
- Wheel drive: A brushless DC motor and a one or two stage planetary gearbox built into the hub of an aluminium wheel with a polyurethane tread, with an encoder for speed and position and an electromagnetic brake that holds when the power is off; on the vehicle the unit hangs on a bogie. Output: one wheel drive; two per vehicle.
Battery pack
- Cathode and anode materials: LFP (hydrothermal or solid state) or NMC precursor to cathode powder; graphite anode. Output: active materials.
- Lithium-ion cell: Electrode mixing, coating, drying, calendering, slitting, stacking or winding, welding, electrolyte fill, sealing, formation. Output: pouch or cylindrical cell, about 3.6 V nominal (13S x 3.6 V matches the G1 54 V charger).
- Battery pack: 13-cell series string (G1) with BMS, quick-release housing and connector; UN38.3 transport test; pack-level protection layers. Output: 0.42 to 2.25 kWh pack, 48 to 67 V class.
Compute
- SoC die: Leading-edge logic fab of the Blackwell GPU + Arm Neoverse V3AE CPU die. Output: Thor die.
- LPDDR5X memory: LPDDR5X die fab and packaging, 128 GB on the T5000 module. Output: LPDDR5X packages.
- GPU or SoC module: SoC packaging, module PCB assembly with DRAM, 699-pin connector, 100 x 87 mm. Output: Jetson T5000 module ($2,999 at 1,000 units) or IGX Thor board.
- Robot compute: Carrier board, thermal design, safety MCU; integrated into the torso or head. Output: robot compute (NEO Cortex; Digit 5 IGX Thor + Halos; Optimus FSD computer).
Perception
- Image sensor: CMOS image sensor fab (global-shutter IR pair + rolling-shutter RGB in the D435i). Output: image sensor die.
- Camera module: Lens, sensor board, IR projector (depth cameras), calibration. Output: depth camera (RealSense D435i on G1) or stereo fisheye pair (NEO, 8.85 MP, 90 Hz).
- Inertial measurement unit: The drone's MEMS IMU step; on the humanoid an IMU sits inside the lidar (Livox Mid-360) and on each link (NEO). Output: 6-axis IMU (TDK ICM-40609 in the Livox Mid-360).
- Safety laser scanner: A scanner that sends a pulse of light, times its return and turns the beam round with a mirror inside, so it measures a whole plane; built and certified as a Type 3 safety device, with fields set in it that switch its safety outputs. Output: safety laser scanner, Type 3, good for a safety function up to PL d; two per vehicle on the MiR250.
Frame and body
- Frame and links: Structural parts of the torso, limbs and joint housings in aircraft-grade aluminium, titanium alloy and high-strength engineering plastics. Output: frame and links.
Robot
- Warehouse vehicle assembly: Two wheel drives, the battery, the robot computer, the safety laser scanners and the cameras built into a low chassis on swivel wheels and wired: one autonomous mobile robot.