Quadruped robot 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
- Nd/Pr metal: Neodymium and praseodymium metal, the main rare-earth input to the magnet alloy.
- Dysprosium and terbium: Heavy rare earths for coercivity at rotor temperature, put in by grain-boundary diffusion (or alloyed in on older grades).
- Gear steel: Alloy steel bar and forgings machined into the flexspline, circular spline and gear trains.
- Bearing steel: Through-hardening bearing steel (100Cr6 = SAE 52100 = SUJ2 class) for bearing rings and the reducer's output bearing.
- 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.
- Laser diode and detector: 905 nm laser diode and receiver inside the lidar.
Motors and drives
- NdFeB alloy powder: Melting and strip casting of Nd-Fe-B alloy, 200 to 400 um flakes; hydrogen decrepitation to under 2 mm; jet milling to 2 to 5 um. Output: aligned fine powder.
- Sintered NdFeB magnet: Align in field and press; sinter 1000 to 1100 C; two-stage anneal 850 to 950 C and 400 to 600 C; machine; grain-boundary diffusion of Dy or Tb for coercivity; nickel or epoxy coat; magnetize. Output: sintered NdFeB segments or ring, grade N42SH to N45UH class for joint rotors.
- Frameless PM motor: Electrical-steel lamination stamping and stacking; copper winding with high fill factor; rotor ring with surface magnets; no housing or bearing (the joint supplies them). Output: frameless PMSM, internal rotor, 48 V bus, 50 to 115 mm outer diameter.
- Precision reducer: Harmonic: flexspline, circular spline and wave generator machined from steel, teeth cut, heat treated, assembled with an output crossed-roller bearing; planetary: two-stage gear train; cycloidal: eccentric cam and pin ring. Output: reducer unit, 30:1 to 160:1 harmonic or 2-stage planetary.
- Crossed roller bearing: Ring forging in 100Cr6-class bearing steel, turning, through-hardening to 58 to 64 HRC, grinding, crossed-roller assembly. Output: crossed roller bearing, 50 to 70 mm bore.
- 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.
- Joint module: Motor + reducer + output bearing + two encoders + driver assembled into one hollow-shaft module; cables routed through the bore. Output: one actuated joint.
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).
- 3D lidar: 905 nm laser diode, detector, non-repetitive scanner, IMU, sealed IP67 housing. Output: Livox Mid-360, 265 g, 6.5 W, 200k points/s.
- 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).
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.
- Cable harness: Cables routed inside every joint (full joint hollow electrical routing). Output: harness through the joints.
Robot
- Quadruped robot assembly: Twelve joint modules, the battery pack, the compute boards, the lidar and the cameras built onto the body and the four legs and wired: one four-legged robot.