Schaeffler wins Hermes Award for actuator tailor-made for humanoids

21 April 2026  

Image Schaeffler

Schaeffler’s compact actuator for humanoid robot joints has won this year’s Hermes Award

The German motion technology company Schaeffler has won this year’s Hermes Award for a scalable, integrated actuator technology that it has developed especially for use in humanoid robot joints. The award, which is made by an independent jury at the Hannover Messe every year, recognises outstanding products with a high level of innovation and significant benefits for industry.

Schaeffler’s actuators incorporate high-efficiency servomotors with integrated power electronics and encoders, and can be configured with two-stage planetary gears or shaft-mounted gears. In developing the actuators, the company’s aim was to save installation space, while delivering a high continuous torque. The devices are said to be about 20% smaller and up to 500g lighter than rival products. The copper fill factor in the frameless PSM motors was increased to ensure that temperatures remain low at high torques. Schaeffler says that its actuators will reduce system costs significantly.

When developing the actuators, Schaeffler relied on 12 of its core manufacturing technologies, including highly automated winding for coils, and chipless metal forming for the roller bearing rings that are just 1mm thick and are integrated into the rotor.

The demand for efficient actuators for humanoid joints is growing globally. Because actuators account for around 50% of the total costs of humanoids, they are a pivotal factor in making them competitive. Schaeffler says its actuators will therefore be a key in readying humanoid robots for large-scale industrial use.

At Hannover, Schaeffler also won a second accolade – the German Innovation Award – for implementing the industrial metaverse at ten of its plants. The metaverse combines real-world production with digital simulation, ensuring more efficient manufacturing processes. The digital ecosystem bridges the gap between the physical shop floor and the virtual environment. Schaeffler plans to extend its use of the industrial metaverse to half of its plants worldwide by 2030.

“With the industrial metaverse, we are not only creating a digital twin of our plants but also a learning ecosystem in manufacturing that will help secure our long-term competitiveness,” says Schaeffler’s CEO, Klaus Rosenfeld. “By using AI in industrial applications and deploying humanoid robots in manufacturing, we are laying the foundation for the factory of the future.”

By integrating AI-supported simulation models and with software, Schaeffler says it is creating efficient, data-driven production environments, and laying the groundwork for the large-scale use of autonomous production systems, such as humanoid robots. In doing so, the company is accelerating its transition to an autonomous, digital production environment.

Schaeffler’s industrial metaverse combines a realistic 3D digital map of a production environment with life-like simulations of physical processes. It integrates with the control software for systems such as AGVs, humanoids and PLCs. Using physical AI, sensor signals are evaluated, patterns are identified, and targeted actions are determined. While robots practice their motion sequences in a virtual environment, assembly processes are being optimised for maximum efficiency before their use in the real world. This enables the automation of processes previously regarded as too complex or uneconomical, “for the first time”.

“For us, the industrial metaverse is far more than just a means to optimise processes,” says Schaeffler’s chief operating officer, Dr Jochen Schröder. “It is the key enabler for the scaling up of humanoid robots, as cyberphysical systems can already be trained by physical AI in the virtual space quickly and efficiently. By using the industrial metaverse, we are paving the way for flexible, high-level automation and greater efficiency in our worldwide volume production.”

Two other companies were shortlisted for the 2026 Hermes Award:

• Ziehl-Abegg, for an electric synchronous elevator motor that does not need rare-earth magnets, yet still offers high performance. The high-torque-density motor uses ferrite magnets and its efficiency is said to be similar to rare-earth designs.
• Festo, for integrated manifolds (multi-layer plastic distributor plates) that control, dispense and mix liquids, while monitoring flow rates using sensors. Compared to conventional channel plates, which mainly perform passive distribution functions, the new manifold integrates active functions in a compact installation space. Its technical innovation is the combination of finely structured, multilayer microchannels and integrated valve and dosing elements, directly embedded sensory measuring points, and a manufacturing process design that makes these functions economically feasible in series production

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