Humanoid Robots to Work at Mercedes-Benz

Posted on March 15, 2024

Mercedes-Benz has cut a deal with Apptronik that will have Apptronik's Apollo humanoid robots working in the assembly line in Mercedes-Benz manufacturing facilities. As part of the agreement Apptronik and Mercedes-Benz will collaborate on identifying applications for highly advanced robotics in Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing.

Apollo stands 5 foot 8 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. It can lift 55 pounds. Apptronik says the robot is built to operate in industrial spaces alongside humans.

In the announcement the companies say the goal is to have the robots work on "physically demanding, repetitive and dull tasks."

Jeff Cardenas, co-founder & CEO of Apollo, says in the announcement, "When we set out to build Apollo, an agreement like the one we're announcing today with Mercedes-Benz was a dream scenario. 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."

This is how Mercedes-Benz sees where Apollo robots will be useful:

Mercedes-Benz is exploring potential use cases for Apollo humanoid robots in logistics to bring parts to the production line for workers to assemble, the so-called delivery of assembly kits, while simultaneously inspecting the components. Apollo will also be used to deliver the totes of kitted parts later in the manufacturing process.

Here's a video showing Apollo performing some mundane tasks like carrying boxes around and moving crates and totes.

ROBOTS