The HMND 01 wheeled, two-armed robot picks up a tote. Source: Humanoid
Humanoid and Siemens AG yesterday said that they have completed a proof of concept, or POC, demonstrating the use of a mobile manipulator in industrial logistics. The POC involved Humanoid’s HMND 01 wheeled Alpha robot. The company deployed the robot in actual operations at a Siemens facility.
Humanoid, which is formally known as SKL Robotics Ltd., structured the POC in two phases. The first phase focused on in-house development and demonstration. The company said its team built a “physical twin” to support testing, optimization, and rapid iteration.
In the POC, the HMND 01 Alpha conducted a tote-to-conveyor de-stacking task within Siemens’ logistics process. The mobile manipulator autonomously picked totes from a storage stack, transported them to a conveyor, and placed them at the designated pickup point for human operators.
The system repeated this sequence until the stack was fully empty, which demonstrated how robots can take on repetitive logistics tasks, Humanoid said.
The second phase included a two-week on-site deployment at the Siemens Electronics Factory in Erlangen, Germany, where the company assessed the robots in a real-world production environment.
HMND 01 meets metrics for success at Siemens
Humanoid said the POC measured both the performance and reliability of its robots under autonomous operation. They met all target metrics, including a throughput of 60 tote moves per hour, operation with two different tote sizes, continuous autonomous task execution for more than 30 minutes, and uptime exceeding 8 hours.
The partners also evaluated the project using the overall pick-and-place success rate and the autonomous pick-and-place success rate, which were both above 90%.
Humanoid and Siemens said this POC is a first step toward a long-term strategic collaboration. The companies added that they are open to expanding the scope and adding use cases. The partners also may progress toward a broader rollout, deploying a greater number of robots across Siemens’ facilities, based on the robot’s specific skill set.
“As Siemens’ ‘Customer 0,’ the Electronics Factory Erlangen is excited to partner with the Humanoid team,” said Stephan Schlauss, global head of manufacturing motion control at Siemens. “We’re tackling production automation, discovering new opportunities for Siemens, and are eager to advance this promising technology across our factory network to deliver customer value.”
Humanoid plans to deploy its robots in more settings
“At Humanoid, we are a commercially driven company. Our focus is on creating robots that deliver measurable value in real-world settings,” stated Artem Sokolov, founder and CEO of Humanoid. “Working closely with industrial and technology partners allows us to validate our systems against real operational requirements and understand which use cases matter outside the lab.”
“This joint POC with Siemens showed clear potential for practical deployment of mobile manipulator robots,” he added. “We see them move steadily toward the real world, and partnerships like this one help accelerate that transition.”
Humanoid this week also partnered with motion technology provider Schaeffler Technologies AG. Over the next five years, the companies agreed to bring hundreds of Humanoid’s robots into Schaeffler’s production facilities.
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