On Monday, Hyundai Motor Group released some pretty exciting news! They’ll be bringing some of their human-like robots, including the Atlas humanoid, to a manufacturing plant in Georgia, USA. This ambitious initiative was first previewed at January’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It is a huge landmark step in deploying cutting-edge robotics into the automotive sector.
Atlas, created by Boston Dynamics years ago for military applications, was built for production line muscle. It’s meant to be complementary to human workers, but has the potential to be able to independently operate machines. Hyundai’s determination to move the industry forward is on display with this one-of-a-kind dual functionality. They want to increase competitiveness, efficiency, and productivity in their manufacturing processes.
Atlas goes into full rollout starting in 2028. The robot will continue to assume greater roles in the production environment, brown-fields and green-fields alike. Hyundai recently announced their most ambitious plan to increase EV manufacturing in the US yet. Moreover, the newly public firm plans to pour money into next-gen autonomous driving technology and artificial intelligence (AI). These advances are very much tied into the development of Atlas. This well thought out and clearly planned initiative shows the company’s commitment to being a leader in the automation field.
Today, Hyundai accepted everybody’s invitation! As you might expect, they’re not the only big automotive players jumping headfirst into the potential of humanoid robots. In fact, Elon Musk’s Tesla has poured billions of dollars into developing its own humanoid robot, Optimus, which is quite similar in concept to Atlas. The race between these two automotive behemoths is just one example of a trend towards using robotics and AI to improve advanced manufacturing.
