Watch: Are You Ready for Humanoid Robotics?

It may sound surprising, but what differentiates humanoid robotics from a lot of other automation technologies is that it actually takes nothing to prepare for it, says Damion Shelton, president of Agility Robotics. 

“It’s the same sort of brownfield infrastructure that humans already work in,” he explains. “So it’s a way of meeting the labor gap that a lot of industries are experiencing, including logistics.”

New humanoid robotics technology might be a little strange at first, but it’s here to stay. People are remarkably comfortable around forklifts, and humanoid robotics are a great deal safer, Shelton points out.

“The goal of human-robot interaction generally is to get people as comfortable around robots as they are around other pieces of automation,” says Shelton. A humanoid form, which is generally considered to be anything with two arms and two legs (heads and hands are optional), can be disconcerting to some and not to others, Shelton says. In some automation systems that have been in existence longer, there might be graphics projected on the floor to show what the robot is doing, or is going to do. Now, that kind of cue is being built into the body language of a humanoid robot. “I think humanoid robots have a good potential to be less unhuman than other technologies, but it requires thoughtful design,” Shelton says.

Now that generative artificial intelligence is in the mix, there’s the potential to shorten the deployment time for automation generally, and for humanoids specifically. “That’s something that we’re really excited about seeing happen over the next couple of years,” Shelton says. 

As for whether we’re going to see warehouses in the near future manned entirely by humanoid or other robots, Shelton doubts it. “It’s always a question of the right tool for the right job,” he says. “I would be very surprised if we saw lights-out warehouses as a trend. I think what you’ll see is a lot more collaboration.”