Humanoid robots are getting ready for the factory spotlight

The race to use humanoid robots in factory settings to lower costs, improve safety, and boost efficiency continues. For its part, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is looking to hire employees to help accumulate data for the company’s Optimus humanoid robot project. The position is described as “Data Collection Operator, Tesla Bot,” and involves employees wearing a motion capture suit and a virtual reality headset while performing designated movements and actions. The data gathered will be part of broad data collection efforts to train Optimus.

Tesla said in job postings that the position will pay up to $48 per hour and require walking for over seven hours a day while carrying up to 30 pounds. Employees selected for the role are likely to be close to Optimus’ projected height of 5’8.

The Optimus training in general involves a formidable amount of data collection. Animesh Garg, a senior researcher at Nvidia (NVDA) Research, warned Optimus may require millions of hours of data before it is fully ready to be utilized in Tesla’s (TSLA) factories.

During Tesla’s (TSLA) Q2 earnings conference call (transcript), CEO Elon Musk highlighted that Optimus is already performing some simple tasks in the EV giant’s factory.

“And we expect to have Optimus production Version 1 in limited production starting early next year. This will be for Tesla consumption. It’s just better for us to iron out the issues ourselves. But we expect to have several thousand Optimus robots produced and doing useful things by the end of next year in the Tesla factories. And then in 2026, ramping up production quite a bit, and at that point we’ll be providing Optimus robots to outside customers. That will be Production Version 2 of Optimus.”

Other companies working on humanoid robot development include Boston Dynamics, Agility Robots, Figure AI, Sanctuary AI, Apptronok, Engineered Arts, Hanson Robotics, UBTech Robotocs, and PAL Robotics. Companies testing industrial and manufacturing use cases for humanoid robots include Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), BMW (OTCPK:BMWYY), Hyundai (OTCPK:HYMTF), and Mercedes-Benz (OTCPK:MBGAF). Some of those companies are also looking at household applications for a humanoid robot.