BMW to trial humanoid robots at German factory, as China competition heats up

German carmaker BMW said on Friday that it planned to deploy two AI-powered humanoid robots in a factory in a pilot programme for the first time this year.Dubbed Aeon and developed by the Swedish company Hexagon, the black-and-white robots stand 1.65 metres (5.4 feet) tall, weigh 60kg (132 pounds) and move on two wheels.They can autonomously manipulate and move components within a factory where the space has been previously fully scanned and digitised.A months-long pilot phase will start this summer in a plant in Leipzig, with employees working alongside the vaguely humanlike robots.The robot “has a full awareness of its environment” thanks to 22 sensors and various types of cameras, said Arnaud Robert, president of Hexagon Robotics.Aeon, a humanoid robotic created by the company Hexagon, works on a car with a laser scanner in Munich, Germany, on Friday. Photo: AFPRobert declined to disclose the price of the robots but said it was in the hundreds of thousands of euros.