Schaeffler and UK’s Humanoid demonstrate bin-picking application
31 October 2025 
The UK robotics and AI developer, Humanoid, has completed a proof-of-concept (POC) with the German bearings manufacturer Schaeffler using a prototype humanoid robot to pick bearing rings from a bin in a near-production setting.
The task involved using the robot’s parallel grippers to pick the rings from a cluttered arrangement in a bin at a static station, transferring the rings to a buffer table for further processing, and moving between stations.
Schaeffler and Humanoid say that traditional automation systems such as robot arms or cobots, suffer from low utilisation and limited ROIs in such applications, with humanoid robots offering clear advantages, such as their ability to move between machines, AI models that generalise skills across many types of ring, and autonomous correction capabilities to re-grasp the rings in real time.
Humanoid built a physical twin of the application in its lab and used teleoperation with leader arms to collect training data. This data was used to fine-tune a pre-trained VLA (vison language action) model.
The two companies say that the POC results met expectations and demonstrated the robot’s ability to develop new skills rapidly, fine-tune performance on-site, and transfer capabilities from lab environments into a real-world facility (at a Schaeffler site in Erlangen, Germany), with minimal adjustments.
“At Humanoid, early POCs are one of our key priorities because they allow us to iterate faster – to go into the real world as early as possible and learn what our future customers truly need,” says Humanoid’s founder, Artem Sokolov. “This project proved that even at the pre-alpha stage, our platform can deliver tangible value in operational settings. We see high potential for more operational applications with humanoids at Schaeffler’s factories.”
“Humanoid robotics plays a crucial role in the production of the future,” adds Sebastian Jonas, Schaeffler’s senior vice-president for advanced production technology. “Schaeffler plans to deploy a significant number of humanoid robots in its global manufacturing footprint. The successful proof-of-concept with Humanoid is another important milestone on this path. We look forward to making progress together in the next phase of the project leveraging our extensive expertise in manufacturing.”
The two companies are now discussing their next steps, and moving to a second phase of the POC in a production environment. This will involve Humanoid’s alpha robot – the first platform that the company has designed and built in-house. It will have a higher payload capacity, more advanced manipulation and improved AI performance. The aim is to validate its performance in realistic manufacturing conditions, including noise, dust and challenging operational demands.
Sokolov founded Humanoid in 2024. The company now employs more than 170 engineers, researchers, and innovators. With offices in London, Boston and Vancouver, it is focusing on building commercially viable, scalable and safe robotic systems for real-world applications.
