On September 21, 2025, Humanoid, a London-based startup specializing in robotics and artificial intelligence, officially announced the release of HMND 01 Alpha, an industrial-grade dual-arm mobile manipulator. Developed in just seven months, this robot is core-positioned to “support humans rather than replace them,” aiming to fill the labor gap in the global manufacturing industry and drive the transformation of industrial production toward a more sustainable and people-centered direction.
Artem Sokolov, the founder of Humanoid and a serial entrepreneur, drew his inspiration from hands-on experience in his family’s manufacturing business. Having witnessed the burden that repetitive work imposes on employees—including his own grandparents—he clearly stated, “The goal of the HMND 01 series robots is to allow humans to focus on more meaningful work.” Behind this philosophy lies the severe labor shortage in the global manufacturing sector: British manufacturers currently report over 58,000 job vacancies, with 26% of manufacturers in Europe citing labor shortages as a major barrier to growth. The situation is even more pressing in the United States, where approximately 600,000 manufacturing positions are currently unfilled, and this number is projected to soar to 2.1 million by 2030.
In terms of technical specifications, the HMND 01 Alpha features a practical design tailored to industrial scenarios. Standing at 220 centimeters tall, it adopts a wheeled base and can move at a speed of up to 7.2 kilometers per hour, balancing stability and flexibility. In terms of core performance, its dual arms can handle an effective payload of 15 kilograms when working in collaboration, with the load-bearing capacity increasing further when objects are close to the body. Its operating range covers heights from the ground up to 2 meters, and it can reach into shelves 60 centimeters deep, enabling direct picking of goods from both ground-level and elevated storage positions. In terms of perception and operational precision, the robot boasts 29 active degrees of freedom. Its head is equipped with a 360-degree RGB camera and two depth sensors, enabling full-scene environmental perception. The end effectors can be flexibly switched between a 12-degree-of-freedom five-fingered hand (suitable for dexterous operations) and a 1-degree-of-freedom parallel gripper (suitable for simple or heavy-duty tasks), with intelligent decision support provided by an AI-driven end-to-end reasoning system—all of which reflect the cutting-edge advancements in modern robot technology.
In terms of development models and commercialization paths, Humanoid has adopted a differentiated strategy. Since its establishment in 2024, the company has secured $50 million in founder-led funding. Its R&D system relies on a proprietary combination of “360° simulation training plus real-world data flywheel,” which the team claims has achieved an efficiency breakthrough of “halving costs and doubling speed” compared to traditional development methods. The HMND 01 Alpha launched this time is positioned as an “industrial scenario test version” and will be deployed in warehouses, logistics centers, retail facilities, and other scenarios to collect data related to function optimization and demand iteration, laying the groundwork for the launch of the Beta wheeled robot in the third quarter of 2026. On the commercial front, Humanoid plans to offer its system under a “Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS)” model, targeting the global industrial robot total addressable market (TAM) valued at $38 billion, which it projects will grow to $1 trillion by 2050. The company also aims to become a market leader in Europe.
Notably, the wheeled base design of the HMND 01 Alpha represents a segmented exploration path in the field of humanoid robots. While bipedal humanoid robots with dual arms have attracted significant attention in the industry, some developers prefer to strike a balance between “flexibility” and “stability” through wheeled bases. Humanoid is not alone in this approach; for example, Kinisi Robotics’ KR1 dual-arm mobile robot (focused on warehouse and storage applications) and RoboForce’s Titan mobile manipulator (launched this year and suitable for harsh outdoor environments) both adopt similar design concepts. More established industry players, such as Mobile Industrial Robots (MIR), have launched the MC600 mobile manipulator (combining the MiR600 autonomous mobile robot with Universal Robots’ UR20/UR30 collaborative arms). This product even helped its parent company, Teradyne, win the 2025 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award, demonstrating the recognition and potential of wheeled mobile manipulators in industrial scenarios.
From an industry value perspective, the launch of the HMND 01 Alpha responds to the global demand for improved industrial productivity. Statistics show that the current average global robot density stands at 162 robots per 10,000 workers, and each additional industrial robot can drive an overall productivity increase of up to 7%—translating to higher output, fewer errors, and reduced labor pressure. Humanoid emphasizes that the HMND 01 series is not just an industrial device, but “a step toward a sustainable work future.” Its commercial implementation is expected to provide a new solution for alleviating the labor dilemma in the manufacturing industry and optimizing production models.
