Humanoid robots from Texas will work at Mercedes-Benz (6 photos)

Mercedes-Benz has announced plans to expand the use of artificial intelligence in production. Part of the integration will be humanoid robots called Apollo, which are already ready for work at one of the Mercedes-Benz innovation sites in Berlin.





The Apollo robots, which vaguely resemble humans, were created by the startup Apptronic. Engineers from the robotics lab at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as Mercedes-Benz employees, who supplied the developers with up-to-date data on production processes, participated in the design of the androids. In addition, some of the work was carried out by specialists from the Google Deepmind division.

At a height of about 170 cm, Apollo weighs 73 kg and can carry weights of up to 25 kg, lifting them with its hands. The robot is equipped with a semblance of a head with symbolic "eyes", but communicates with others not by voice, but by coded messages transmitted using LEDs.

According to Mercedes-Benz, at first the androids will be used for repetitive monotonous tasks in the field of intralogistics. Simply put, Apollo will be tasked with bringing parts, components and modules to the assembly line. In the future, the robots may also take on primary quality control, but Mercedes-Benz plans to teach them more complex tasks over time.

The German concern announced that investments in Apptronic in the amount of several million euros should become a confirmation of Mercedes-Benz's commitment to maximum robotization of its production processes.