China this month hosted the World Robot Conference which included the World Humanoid Robot Games. While footage of some spectacular crashes and synchronised marching from the event has circulated widely and been the mainstream talking points, the advances in humanoid warehousing and logistics capabilities is nothing short of impressive.

One exhibit showed 10 humanoids “in a coordinated workflow, with some lifting and stacking boxes and others sorting goods along an assembly line”, while another demonstrated the ability of humanoids to navigate a warehouse relying solely on model-based recognition.

In other news this week, Pudu Robotics launches a pallet handling autonomous mobile robot, the UK Government is being called on to do more to support business investment in automation and Multiway Robotics deploys an intelligent warehouse solution which includes multi-model autonomous forklifts.