Humanoid Robots Being Tested at Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is collaborating with Apptronik to test its humanoid robot, Apollo, at its manufacturing facilities.

The partnership marks Apollo’s first publicly announced commercial deployment and the first potential application of humanoid robotics for Mercedes-Benz.

Under the project, Apollo will take over some of the more labor-intensive factory tasks including assembly, component inspection and delivering the constructed parts later in the manufacturing process.

"To build the most desirable cars we continually evolve the future of automotive production: Advancements in robotics and AI open up new opportunities also for us,” said Jörg Burzer, member of Mercedes-Benz Group’s board of management. “We are exploring new possibilities with the use of robotics to support our skilled workforce in manufacturing, 

“This is a new frontier and we want to understand the potential both for robotics and automotive manufacturing to fill labor gaps in areas such as low-skill, repetitive and physically demanding work and to free up our highly skilled team members on the line to build the world’s most desirable cars.” 

Apptronik first unveiled Apollo last August, described as “the world’s most capable humanoid robot.” 

Apptronik said it designed Apollo to alleviate pressures on businesses facing labor shortages and rising production demands, with the robot built to operate in industrial spaces alongside human workers. 

Related:Humanoid Robot Unveiled by Apptronik

“When we set out to build Apollo, an agreement like the one we’re announcing today with Mercedes-Benz was a dream scenario,” said Jeff Cardenas, Apollo’s CEO. “Mercedes plans to use robotics and Apollo for automating some low skill, physically challenging, manual labor – a model use case which we’ll see other organizations replicate in the months and years to come.”

Roughly human size, Apollo stands at 5 feet, 8 inches tall, weighs 160 pounds and can carry as much as 55 pounds. Apptronik also said Apollo was designed to be mass-manufacturable, energy efficient and “optimized for supply chain resiliency.”

The announcement follows a similar deal between BMW and Figure robotics, where the automaker will deploy Figure’s general-purpose humanoid robots in the car manufacturing process.