Humanoid partners with Bosch to scale production of industrial humanoid robots

UK robotics startup Humanoid has secured a manufacturing partnership with Bosch as it moves from proof-of-concept testing to large-scale production of humanoid robots for industrial environments.

The agreement follows a successful pilot project between the two companies in March, they announced, during which Humanoid’s HMND 01 robots autonomously handled intralogistics tasks at Bosch’s facility in Bühl, Germany.

Humanoid said the project involved the robots transfer boxes of varying sizes and weights from conveyor systems to trolleys in a live logistics environment.

Under the agreement, Bosch will act as Humanoid’s contract manufacturing partner for the European market while also supporting hardware design, production engineering, supply chain management and cost optimisation through a Design for Excellence framework.

The pilot deployment was powered by KinetIQ, Humanoid’s proprietary AI orchestration framework, which the company says enables robots to adapt to dynamic industrial workflows and multiple input streams in real time.

Alongside manufacturing support, the companies will also explore integrating Bosch technologies including actuators, sensors and drive systems into future versions of the HMND 01 platform.

“This partnership is built on the shared belief in the great potential of robotics in industry,” said Peter Svejkovsky, head of corporate intellectual property at Bosch. “Bosch’s goal is to advance the scaling of humanoid robotics and to further develop this field of the future.

“With our global production infrastructure and deep industrialisation expertise we are the perfect partner to take the step from prototype to volume manufacturing.”