Robot trial at Siemens

Siemens has put a humanoid robot into live factory logistics work at its electronics plant in Erlangen, Germany. The robot, built by London startup Humanoid and powered by Nvidia software and chips, handled totes on the shop floor rather than in a lab test. (press.siemens.com) The machine is called HMND 01 Alpha, and Siemens said it met all target metrics in the trial announced April 16. Those metrics included 60 tote moves an hour, more than eight hours of uptime, and autonomous pick-and-place success above 90%. (press.siemens.com) A tote-handling job is basic warehouse work: pick up containers, move them, and place them where the next worker or machine needs them. Siemens said the robot performed that job inside its logistics operations for human operators at the Erlangen factory. (assets.new.siemens.com) The hardware is not a walking android. Humanoid and Siemens describe HMND 01 Alpha as a wheeled humanoid with an omnidirectional mobile base and robotic arms designed for industrial spaces built around carts, conveyors, and aisles. (therobotreport.com) The software stack is the bigger point. Humanoid said it used Nvidia Jetson Thor for on-robot computing, Isaac Sim to train and test the robot in simulation, and Isaac Lab for reinforcement learning before deployment in the plant. (therobotreport.com) Siemens supplied the factory control layer around the robot through its Xcelerator portfolio. The company said that included digital-twin tools, programmable logic controller interfaces, fleet management, industrial communications, and links to other autonomous guided vehicles and production systems. (assets.new.siemens.com) The Erlangen test is part of a broader Siemens-Nvidia push announced at CES on January 6, 2026. The two companies said then they wanted to build fully artificial-intelligence-driven, adaptive manufacturing sites, starting with Siemens’ electronics factory in Erlangen. (press.siemens.com) That agenda is now being promoted at Hannover Messe, which runs April 20-24, 2026, in Hannover, Germany. Nvidia’s event materials say the show is focused on industrial AI, physical AI, real-time simulation, and robotics on factory floors. (nvidia.com) Humanoid is a young company by industrial standards. The Robot Report said the London-based startup was founded in 2024, and Siemens and Humanoid first announced their proof of concept in January 2026 before the live factory results were released in April. (therobotreport.com) What Siemens has shown so far is a logistics task inside one plant, with measured throughput, uptime, and success-rate targets rather than a general-purpose factory worker. The next test for HMND 01 Alpha is whether those numbers hold as Siemens tries to turn a pilot in Erlangen into repeatable industrial deployment. (press.siemens.com)