Humanoid Robots Get ERP Brains as Toyota and Japanese Researchers Close the Perception Gap

News

SAP's Joule Agent Now Routes Live Warehouse Tasks Directly to Humanoid Robots

The Humanoid x SAP x Martur Fompak POC is the first time an external enterprise system controlled a humanoid in a live production environment, with the robot executing picking tasks with full awareness of real-time inventory and production schedules. This is the software integration story that makes humanoids actually deployable at scale, not just impressive in demos.

Toyota Material Handling Ships Swarm Automation Transport for Mixed-Fleet Warehouses

Toyota's Swarm Automation Transport pairs its SAI125CB stacker with T-ONE software to handle euro pallets, bottom-deck pallets, and hybrid human-robot operations out of the box. The gradual automation angle matters here because most warehouses can't flip to full automation overnight, and Toyota is betting on that reality.

Research

HEAPGrasp Hits 96% Success Rate on Transparent and Reflective Objects Using RGB Only

Tokyo University of Science's HEAPGrasp uses silhouette-based 3D reconstruction instead of depth sensors, which breaks down on glass and shiny metal, cutting camera travel by 52% and execution time by 19% versus baseline methods. Transparent trays and glossy packaging are a genuine bottleneck in logistics automation, and this is a practical path around it that retrofits onto existing systems.