Hexagon launches AEON humanoid robot to solve labor shortages in global manufacturing and logistics

Hexagon AB (Nasdaq Stockholm: HEXA B), the Swedish multinational leader in sensor technology, industrial metrology, and software-driven automation, officially launched its first humanoid robot—AEON—at the 2025 Hexagon LIVE Global event in Stockholm on June 17. Developed through the group’s Robotics division, AEON is designed to meet complex industrial needs with advanced sensor fusion, locomotion, and AI-enabled spatial awareness, addressing systemic labor shortages in core manufacturing and infrastructure sectors.

The launch signifies Hexagon’s formal entry into humanoid robotics, a domain increasingly regarded as vital for industries facing demographic pressures, skilled labor constraints, and rising production automation mandates. AEON’s debut is backed by enterprise-grade integration with NVIDIA and Microsoft and will enter pilot deployment in manufacturing environments through partnerships with Pilatus and Schaeffler. The humanoid’s feature suite is built to serve industrial inspection, manipulation, teleoperation, and digital twin creation, allowing companies to digitize repetitive operations while maintaining agility and operational precision.

The announcement places Hexagon alongside a growing field of industrial-focused robotics innovators. While companies such as Tesla and Agility Robotics have also publicized humanoid projects, AEON is distinctive for its precision-first approach, leveraging decades of expertise in spatial intelligence and industrial metrology.

How does Hexagon plan to position AEON for industrial adoption across sectors like manufacturing, aerospace, and logistics?

According to Hexagon’s internal roadmap, AEON is being engineered as a real-world humanoid assistant tailored for factory floors, logistics hubs, and high-precision environments. The robot combines core robotic dexterity with enterprise-scale AI, integrating real-time multimodal sensor data to navigate and interact with dynamic environments. AEON is expected to support applications such as part handling, inspection, and mission-critical process automation—especially in sectors where safety, consistency, and adaptability are essential.

Hexagon is targeting AEON’s capabilities across six core verticals: automotive manufacturing, aerospace engineering, industrial warehousing, transportation logistics, complex part inspection, and smart facility operations. The robot features proprietary battery-swapping infrastructure, enabling continuous deployment without traditional downtime for charging. Coupled with its sensor-integrated limbs and mobility modules, AEON can replicate many human task functions with superior precision.

Institutional observers note that Hexagon’s push into robotics aligns with macro trends across industrial markets: the convergence of automation, demographic shifts reducing labor supply, and enterprise digitization mandates. AEON’s humanoid format offers an interface adaptable to human-centric workflows, potentially reducing barriers to deployment in legacy manufacturing facilities that were not designed for conventional robotics.

What are the core technical innovations behind AEON’s spatial intelligence, mobility, and autonomous task execution?

AEON’s development integrates technologies from across Hexagon’s instrumentation and software portfolios. The robot leverages spatially aware sensor networks, real-time AI reasoning, and mechanical flexibility to perform tasks ranging from material manipulation to high-fidelity environmental scanning.

Its spatial intelligence core merges data from multimodal sensors—including lidar, RGB-D cameras, force sensors, and IMUs—to generate semantic and geometric understanding of its environment. This foundation enables AEON to dynamically reason and adjust to task demands, whether it involves navigating cluttered factory spaces or performing delicate manipulation tasks.

The robot’s locomotion is powered by actuators developed in partnership with maxon, a global leader in precision drive systems. AEON’s limbs and joints are optimized for both human-equivalent range of motion and payload efficiency, allowing for advanced dexterity in machine tending and component inspection.

On the compute side, AEON is powered by NVIDIA Jetson for edge AI inference and NVIDIA Omniverse for simulation-backed mission training. The integration with Microsoft Azure enables scalable training, task updates, and telemetry analytics, providing industrial customers with modular upgrade pathways and digital twin integration.

This software-hardware architecture supports end-to-end autonomy, from perception and planning to actuation and environment adaptation, enabling AEON to operate across multiple task categories with minimal reprogramming.

What are Schaeffler and Pilatus expecting from their pilot deployments of Hexagon’s AEON platform?

Hexagon has confirmed that AEON will first be tested in production settings at facilities operated by Swiss aerospace firm Pilatus Aircraft Ltd and German automotive motion technology developer Schaeffler Group. These pilots are focused on evaluating AEON’s viability in discrete manufacturing, inspection routines, and operator-augmentation tasks.

Pilatus, which manufactures aircraft in Switzerland’s high-cost industrial environment, sees AEON as a potential solution to enhance competitiveness without compromising process integrity. Roman Emmenegger, Vice President of Manufacturing at Pilatus, emphasized AEON’s role in “sustaining competitiveness in increasingly demanding global markets,” noting its agility and sensors as crucial enablers for digitization and automation.

At Schaeffler, which has extensive experience in vertically integrated manufacturing and industrial process innovation, AEON is being deployed to augment machine tending and inspection tasks. Sebastian Jonas, Senior Vice President of Advanced Production Technology at Schaeffler, highlighted the partnership as part of a broader strategy to “leverage disruptive technologies” and position Schaeffler as a leader in motion systems innovation.

The pilots will provide key data on AEON’s interoperability, safety compliance, uptime metrics, and integration ease with legacy workflows—factors that industrial buyers weigh heavily in procurement cycles. These trials are also expected to inform AEON’s modular product roadmap and software training loop.

How are analysts viewing the commercial potential and competitive differentiation of AEON in the global humanoid robotics market?

While Hexagon has not disclosed AEON’s projected unit pricing or detailed sales model, institutional sentiment around the launch is cautiously optimistic. Analysts covering industrial automation point to Hexagon’s track record in sensor fusion, simulation software, and metrology as key advantages in a space crowded with R&D-heavy ventures but limited commercially viable products.

Unlike humanoid concepts built purely for general-purpose utility or consumer-facing robotics, AEON is built from the ground up for B2B industrial applications. This aligns with procurement patterns where buyers prioritize interoperability, system certification, and ROI-based metrics over novelty.

Moreover, Hexagon’s partnerships with NVIDIA, Microsoft, and maxon signal a deep vertical stack that could help AEON stand out among humanoids still limited to lab demonstrations. Analysts expect initial revenue contributions to be small but growing, with commercial scaling likely to be gradual and tied to macroeconomic automation trends.

Industry observers note that AEON’s success will hinge on demonstrable uptime, maintenance efficiency, and integration tooling—particularly as firms navigate capital investment decisions amid tight budgets. However, Hexagon’s institutional client base and field-tested technologies may offer a springboard few humanoid developers currently enjoy.

What is the commercial roadmap and longer-term outlook for AEON’s deployment across global industry?

Hexagon’s Robotics division plans to complete industrial trials within six months, after which AEON will be offered for broader commercial deployment. While details of pricing tiers and regional availability are pending, the platform will likely target Tier 1 manufacturers, logistics providers, and aerospace OEMs in Europe, North America, and APAC.

In terms of long-term integration, Hexagon is expected to deepen AEON’s compatibility with its digital twin software, simulation environments, and metrology instrumentation. Analysts suggest future iterations may include swappable task modules, cloud-based mission libraries, and sector-specific AI tuning packs.

If AEON’s deployment proves commercially viable, Hexagon could become one of the few multinational industrial tech companies to offer a full-stack autonomous humanoid robotics suite. This would further its strategy of embedding autonomy into every link of the manufacturing chain, from planning and design to inspection and real-time operations.

As industries face persistent demographic change and cost pressures, the demand for autonomous labor-capable systems is projected to rise. AEON—positioned as an enterprise-ready, sensor-intelligent humanoid—enters the market at a moment of accelerating transformation in physical automation.