While giants like Tesla and Boston Dynamics are trying to create a universal robot that will cook breakfast and talk about the meaning of life, the British startup Humanoid Labs approached the issue with true English pragmatism. Their brainchild, the HMND-01 Alpha robot, is not just another sleek android for beautiful YouTube videos. No, this is a hard worker who looks like he was assembled from what was found in the garage after the weekend.
Imagine this: a mobile base resembling a TV store from Star Wars, with a powerful manipulator instead of a head. No eye displays trying to portray friendliness. Only a steel "hand" with an impressive compressive force of 10 kg, ready to grab anything from a fragile part to, probably, a cup of tea, if you ask very politely.
The developers claim that their goal is not to impress the imagination, but to solve real problems in production and logistics. And that's where the fun begins. HMND-01 Alpha uses cameras and computer vision algorithms for navigation, which, in theory, should allow it to navigate complex spaces. Of course, he won't be running around the shop floor with the same grace as the Spot from Boston Dynamics, but he probably won't require a salary and annual leave for his services.
What provokes a sarcastic grin is the statement about "revolutionary simplicity" and "accessibility." There are many examples in history when startups started with similar slogans, but in the end the price of their product turned out to be comparable to the cost of a small private jet. Humanoid Labs has so far kept silent about the exact figure, leaving room for imagination. Perhaps it will cost like a good car, or maybe like a fleet of those very cars.
The approach of Humanoid Labs is respected: why create the most complex humanoid robot if 90% of industrial tasks can be solved using a mobile platform with a single but very effective manipulator? It's like using a high—quality tire iron instead of a Swiss army knife with twenty functions - sometimes that's exactly what you need.
As a result, HMND-01 Alpha is a sober and slightly cynical view of robotics. It does not claim to be a "spiritual successor of man," but positions itself as a reliable and specialized tool. And, who knows, perhaps it is such a "garage" pragmatist, and not an advertised android, who will be the first to truly take root in the factories of the future. At least he won't be distracted by talking about the weather.
