A humanoid machine called Apollo has just taken a tentative, slightly jerky, but significant step forward in the robot revolution.
The 5’8″ tall robot performed the first public demonstration in a real-world setting of a real-world task – in this case assembling an engine part – entirely autonomously.
Clicking two parts together with a twist of its servo-controlled wrists, and handing it to a human colleague is a basic task. But it’s also an important moment in the much-hyped world of human-like robot development.
“This is a really big day for us,” says Jeff Cardenas, chief executive of Apptronik, the US company behind Apollo.
“We’re excited to show this off, excited for the public to see the robot live and in person.”
Mercedes-Benz has announced a multimillion-pound investment in Apptronik and is trialling a handful of the humanoid robots at its factory in Berlin and another in Hungary.
Investors and industrial firms – particularly car makers with long experience of using robots in manufacturing – have been closely following the development of human-like robots.
The costs of small, lightweight components have fallen as artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and computer vision technology have led to rapid advances in the field of robots that can emulate human movement and tasks.
But despite a rising number of increasingly impressive-looking cyborgs being unveiled by tech companies in the US and Asia, few have taken their first steps out of the lab.
The Apollo robot looks small and underpowered surrounded by the huge robotic arms that weld, bolt and inspect Mercedes’ latest cars at the Berlin-Marienfelde plant.
But hosting a robot with a human “form-factor” is more than just a photo opportunity, according to Mercedes-Benz.
“There’s one big advantage,” says Jorg Burzer, head of production and supply chain management at the German car maker.
“A humanoid robot is flexible, so you can basically introduce it to an assembly line or internal logistics or quality inspection… you can basically move it from one place to another.”
Introducing a new assembly line, or upgrading an old one with traditional robotic arms is a major investment.
A robot that can be adapted to a range of tasks and work alongside humans would avoid that investment.
With hands and feet like ours, they can operate tools and work in the same workspaces as people.
Apollo can lift more than 25kg and potentially perform repetitive tasks that are, in the words of humanoid robot developers, too “dull, dirty or dangerous” for humans.
The purpose of the trial is to establish which tasks humanoid robots can usefully do and help improve the machine learning and dexterity required to do more.
“We want to try to find out what is really possible,” says Mr Burzer.
“It’s also very important to test how a humanoid robot can be integrated in running production together with our colleagues working here every day.”
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Texas-based Apptronik is reluctant to make claims as bold as some of their rivals.
“Everyone’s ready for a robot to come into their home and do all of their laundry and all the things that they don’t want to do. But it’s very early on,” says Mr Cardenas.
“Take the analogy of the shift to the personal computer. We’re in the early ’80s so at the very beginning.”
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Investors seem to believe in a robot-dominated future. One recent forecast sees the humanoid market growing 20-fold in the next eight years, with predictions of a population of tens of millions of the machines by 2050.
One major hurdle is the AI brains behind them.
Apptronik admits a truly “general purpose” robot capable of functioning outside a predictable and controlled environment like a factory won’t be possible until computer intelligence can understand the real world like we do.
So-called “world models” are very much a work in progress for AI developers.
So the important questions, like when humanoid robots will steal our jobs, or whether they will go rogue and rise up against us can wait… for a little while at least.
