General-purpose humanoid robots using AI are advancing and increasingly gaining investment support to perform tasks that humans do easily. According to SkyQuest Technology Research, the humanoid robot market size was valued at $1.48 billion in 2021, and projected to grow from $42.10 billion in 2022 to $34.96 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 42.1% in the forecast period of 2023-2030.
Much of the growth is coming from the realities of the rising aging population, fueling demand for humanoid robots for personal assistance, caregiving, education and medical sectors. However we are now starting to see more announcements of humanoid robots to provide support in the manufacturing and transportation and logistics sectors as well.
Most recently, Apptronik, a leader in next-generation general purpose humanoid robots announced that it has entered into an agreement with Mercedes-Benz to collaborate on identifying applications for highly advanced robotics in Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing. 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.
The addition of humanoid robots to factories and plants would allow organizations like Mercedes-Benz to deploy robotics that are optimized to perform in spaces that are designed for humans, thus avoiding full-scale facility redesigns that are built around robots rather than people. In short, this approach centers on automating some physically demanding, repetitive and dull tasks for which it is increasingly hard to find reliable workers.
Full opinion : Humanoid AI Smart Robots Driving New Job Realities.
Is your head still spinning from all the AI news of late? It will all seem so quaint when the useful humanoid robots arrive. See: Rise of the Robots: Breakthroughs in Humanoid Robotics and the Dawn of Embodied AI
