SALEM, Ore. – In an office park opposite an Amazon warehouse, the robots are at work.

A trio of six-foot-tall machines with ostrichlike legs and two jointed arms work in shifts, walking off a charging rack to move boxes between two conveyor belts until it’s time to plug in again.

This vision of the future of labour is a test station at the end of an assembly line for building humanoid robots designed to fill jobs in warehouses and auto plants. Human engineers nearby watch for mistakes as the machines are put through their paces.

Agility Robotics, a 10-year-old company spun out of Oregon State University’s robotics lab, says its factory is designed to eventually manufacture 10,000 robots a year. Some it has built are already at work in e-commerce warehouses and auto parts factories.

Hum

See Full Page