Humanoid’s founder and robotics team discuss building the HMND 01 wheeled humanoid, from its commercial purpose and design to integrating and preparing the prototype for customer trials across Boston, London, and Vancouver.
The team sees recent progress in AI, controls, and autonomous driving as making practical humanoid work more achievable than it was a few years ago. HMND is targeting industrial and manufacturing jobs, especially tasks that are dangerous, dirty, unhealthy, or repetitive. Its longer-term plans include service work and assistance in homes.
The team worked to turn an initially vague product idea into a clear prototype concept. HMND 01 has a wheeled base, torso, sensor-equipped head, two arms, and parallel-jaw grippers; a two-legged version was also planned. Designers chose familiar proportions, a simplified head, and optional clothing to help workers feel comfortable around it and let customers match its appearance to their workplace.
Engineers from Boston, London, and Vancouver brought together the robot’s computers, sensors, mechanics, electronics, and software. The company assembled three robots in Boston, with one reserved for controls development and two intended for London. Teams expected integration problems, and the arms’ customs delays added pressure to the shipping schedule.
The team faced a tight deadline because a late shipment would hold up product, software, and manufacturing work. Despite power outages and other setbacks, the robot was assembled, checked, and shipped to London; reassembly there took about one to two hours, and the delayed arms were integrated afterward. HMND planned customer proof-of-concept projects, with a six-week sprint focused on tote handling and machine feeding.
Briefs summarise talks and interviews; timestamps open the video at that moment. Claims in a talk are the speaker's own.
At ICRA 2026, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society panel discusses humanoid robotics’ return on investment, reliability, safety, deployment and investment, with Andrea Kay of Silicon Valley Robotics, systems engineer Katina, and other panelists and audience members.
Diana Wolf Torres, robotics newsletter writer at Droids and chief evangelist at Lightwheel, discusses physical AI and robotics at NVIDIA GTC 2026 with host Jonathan Stevens on the Thinking Machine podcast.
Artium Solos, founder and CEO of Humanoid, discusses the company’s plan to build and deploy industrial AI humanoid robots with its teams in Vancouver, Boston, and London.
