Apptronik and Mercedes-Benz Enter Commercial Agreement

Apptronik, a leaderin next-generation general purpose humanoid robots designed to change the way we live and work, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Mercedes-Benz. As part of the agreement Apptronik and Mercedes-Benz will collaborate on identifying applications for highly advanced robotics in Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing.

Mercedes-Benz is committed to empowering its staff with state-of-the-art technology that supports its commitment toexcellence, and with Apollo, Mercedes-Benz brings one of world’s most advancedcommercial humanoid robot into its manufacturing facilities. Mercedes-Benz isexploring potential use cases for Apollo humanoid robots in logistics to bringparts to the production line for workers to assemble, the so-called delivery ofassembly kits, while simultaneously inspecting the components. Apollo will alsobe used to deliver the totes of kitted parts later in the manufacturingprocess.

The addition of humanoid robots to factoriesand plants would allow organizations like Mercedes-Benz to deploy robotics thatare optimized to perform in spaces that are designed for humans, thus avoidingfull-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 reliableworkers.

“When we set out to build Apollo, an agreementlike the one we’re announcing today with Mercedes-Benz was a dream scenario,”said Jeff Cardenas, co-founder & CEO of Apollo. “Mercedes plans to userobotics and Apollo for automating some low skill, physically challenging,manual labor – a model use case which we’ll see other organizations replicatein the months and years to come.”

Apollo, which has a form factor that roughlymatches the size of a human worker (5 foot 8 inches tall and 160 pounds inweight with the ability to lift 55 pounds), is built to operate in industrialspaces alongside people. Combined with a unique force control architecture thatmaintains safe operation around people (similar to a collaborative robot versusa traditional industrial robot), Apollo’s friendly design allows it to workalongside people while simultaneously taking on the physically demanding tasks.

Additionally, Apollo’s computing power makesit possible for leading AI companies to solve use cases outside the ones thatApptronik will initially solve, similar to the iPhone concept: world-class,user-friendly hardware that comes with some pre-built applications and can addapplications developed by third parties.

"To build the mostdesirable cars we continually evolve the future of automotive production:Advancements in robotics and AI open up new opportunities also for us. We areexploring new possibilities with the use of robotics to support ourskilled workforce in manufacturing. This is a new frontier and we want tounderstand the potential both for robotics and automotive manufacturing to filllabor gaps in areas such as low skill, repetitive and physically demanding workand to free up our highly skilled team members on the line to build the world’smost desirable cars.” Jörg Burzer, Member of the Board of Management ofMercedes-Benz Group AG, Production, Quality & Supply Chain Management.

News release from Apptronik, 15/03/2024

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