A humanoid machine called Apollo has just taken a tentative, slightly jerky, but significant step forward in the robot revolution.
The 5’8″ tall robot performed the first public demonstration in a real-world setting of a real-world task – in this case assembling an engine part – entirely autonomously.
Clicking two parts together with a twist of its servo-controlled wrists, and handing it to a human colleague is a basic task. But it’s also an important moment in the much-hyped world of human-like robot development.
“This is a really big day for us,” says Jeff Cardenas, chief executive of Apptronik, the US company behind Apollo.
“We’re excited to show this off, excited for the public to see the robot live and in person.”
Mercedes-Benz has announced a multimillion-pound investment in Apptronik and is trialling a handful of the humanoid robots at its factory in Berlin and another in Hungary.
Investors and industrial firms – particularly carmakers with long experience of using robots in manufacturing – have been closely following the development of human-like robots.
The costs of small, lightweight components have fallen as artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and computer vision technology have led to rapid advances in the field of robots that can emulate human movement and tasks.
But despite a rising number of increasingly impressive-looking cyborgs being unveiled by tech companies in the US and Asia, few have taken their first steps out of the lab.
The Apollo robot looks small and underpowered surrounded by the huge robotic arms that weld, bolt and inspect Mercedes’ latest cars at the Berlin-Marienfelde plant.
But hosting a robot with a human “form-factor” is more than just a photo opportunity, according to Mercedes-Benz.
“There’s one big advantage,” says Jorg Burzer, head of…
