New Humanoid 'Noble' Deploys in Factory
Startup Noble Machines, founded by ex-SpaceX, Apple, and NASA engineers, has launched its first humanoid robot after just 18 months of development. The bot boasts a 27kg payload, a 5-hour battery, and the ability to navigate stairs and scaffolding, with an end-to-end AI that learns skills in hours. It's already been deployed in a Fortune Global 500 factory.
Noble Machines, formerly Under Control Robotics, is differentiating itself by targeting heavy industry sectors like construction, mining, and energy. This "anti-human" design philosophy focuses on ruggedness for hazardous jobs, contrasting with competitors aiming for more human-like interaction in less demanding environments. The race to automate automotive manufacturing is a key battleground for humanoids. Figure AI has a commercial agreement to deploy its robots at BMW's plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to automate tasks in the manufacturing process. Similarly, BMW is testing Hexagon's AEON robot for tasks in high-voltage battery assembly at its Leipzig plant in Germany. Tech giants are also leveraging their own production lines as testing grounds. Tesla has already deployed over 1,000 of its Optimus Gen 3 robots in its factories for parts processing and is building a dedicated factory in Texas with a goal of producing 1 million units annually. Xiaomi's humanoid robots have also begun trial operations in its car factory, powered by its proprietary vision-language-action model. This new generation of robots represents a shift from single-purpose machines to general-purpose "Physical AI". The key technological driver is the integration of advanced foundation models, like Vision Language Models (VLMs), which allow the robots to perceive and navigate unstructured human environments rather than follow pre-programmed instructions. [1
