Humanoid robots one tiny step closer to exterminating autoworkers' jobs

That's one small step for Humanoid, or rather a short factory floor traversal. The UK-based robotics biz says it has completed a proof-of-concept test showing its rolling robot can be deployed in a production environment to help with automotive manufacturing.

Humanoid worked with SAP and automotive parts supplier Martur Fompak to demonstrate that its HMND 01 Alpha Wheeled robot – a torso with arms mounted on a wheeled platform – is fit for warehouse work.

The robot was set up to handle a logistics picking workflow. The task involved receiving instructions from the SAP AI agent, navigating across the work area to the selected pallet, fetching the appropriate KLT box, and putting it on a trolley. The company claims that repeating the task as part of the order-fulfillment flow shows the bot is fit for purpose.

During this test, the robot relied on Humanoid's KinetIQ ...