The News:
Mercedes-Benz announced their intention of testing the potential of humanoid robots in taking over tasks that require low skill but are physically demanding. Apptronik, a robotics firm, recently revealed it has formed a commercial partnership with Mercedes to test the application of its sophisticated robotic technology, including the 160-pound bipedal robot named Apollo, in the manufacturing process. This move comes after a similar announcement by BMW earlier this year. The pilot project with Mercedes aims to deploy Apollo for tasks such as inspecting and transporting parts to workers on the production line. However, the specifics of the deal, including the financial aspects and the number of Apollo robots being tested, remain confidential.
Why we are ready for this?
Yet, some people may receive this news with criticism. I didn’t, and if you have a bit of patience I’ll explain why.
In the movie Bicentennial Man (1999), Robin Williams plays an androids who works as a housekeeper for a family. In one scene, we see the android serving breakfast to the family while the father sits at the table reading the news on–wait for it–a newspaper! Not a tablet or his phone, but an actual newspaper as we were so accustomed before the beginning of the new millennium. In the fictional world of the movie, the technology is so advanced that sentient intelligent can be achieved in a laboratory, yet nothing else seems to have had benefit from the road that led to that achievement. It’s like dropping an automobile (with a full tank) into medieval time–hence fear and loathing would (and should) be expected.
However, our daily life has changed drastically in the last quarter of the century. Does anyone remember reading an actual map to find your destination? Or calling a taxi company trying to explain where to get picked up? and these are just a few minor examples without even need to mention ChatGPT.
Why using humanoids?
So, the technology is here and we have been affected in so many ways by it. Yet, another question would be why choosing a humanoid robot to do the job of a robot manipulator? Car companies have been using manipulators in their manufactory process for many years. Initially, they were employed for repetitive and tedious jobs with no way to sense the environment or intelligence. The result was magnificent from an engineering prospective. The same type of robots would be programmed for different tasks, according to the needs of the company, improving productivity and reducing the risks associated with heavy and tedious jobs for their employees. That, obviously, comes at a cost. A team of engineers had to transform the assembly lines to be extremely precise and overcome the limits of these robots–with no sensing, the car need to be placed where the robot has been programmed to work, a few centimeters displacement and the robot arm drills where is not supposed to. We call this a structured environment, where every variable is accounted for and known. With time and more technology advancement, we were able to relax this constraints–you can read more about it here. By having sensors that can scan the environment for well-known markers or features, the robot can estimate the position of what is sensed and provide adjustments. This is call a semi-structured environment, where there is still structure but we do not need to be that precise in modelling.
This leads to my final thought. History is just repeating itself. Now that the technology for robot humanoid is ready to step out of the robotics labs where it has been built, what better place that a structured or semi-structured environment to test it than a car manufactory line? As for the first robot manipulators, the first pilot will employ this technology only for repetitive tasks–probably preprogrammed and with little, if none, intelligence from the android–but it will be a benchmark for integrating more and more autonomous procedures in a safe environment.
To conclude, I am very excited about this news and I am sure I’ll follow what will happen next. Stay tuned!