ID Logistics to Pilot Humanoid Robots in German Warehouse Within Six Months

ID Logistics will run its first humanoid robot pilot under real warehouse operating conditions in Germany within six months, under a strategic partnership with Terra Robotics that took effect on 1 November 2026. The deal builds on roughly a year of joint testing in which two humanoid robots learned to sort cardboard boxes from mailer bags and place them into shipping boxes.

The two companies first began working together about a year before the announcement. Each side invested in a Unitree G1 EDU6 humanoid robot to develop and test an initial sorting process. The robot named IDA is stationed at ID Logistics' facility in Griesheim, while its counterpart, named Heinz, operates at Terra Robotics' site in Löhne.

Both machines were programmed to perform the identical sorting task. Using five-fingered hands fitted with tactile sensors, they can now distinguish between the two packaging types and place each into shipping boxes — a small but concrete milestone in the effort to bring general-purpose humanoids into contract logistics.

What will the pilot test?

The partnership targets tasks where humanoid robots could realistically support warehouse operations. The stated focus covers sorting, order picking, packing and other repetitive logistics activities. Robin Otto, CEO of ID Logistics Germany, said the logistics sector offers considerable potential for humanoid robotics precisely because so many warehouse processes involve repetitive work.

Over the coming weeks, the partners will evaluate four or five potential use cases and define their technical and operational requirements. They will then select the most suitable task — and the robot model to perform it — before launching the pilot at an ID Logistics site in Germany.

Terra Robotics' portfolio includes humanoid robots from manufacturers such as Unitree and UBTECH, but the companies have not yet confirmed which model the pilot will use. The trial is designed to assess the technology's capabilities and, equally important, its limitations under real operating conditions rather than in a lab.

Why does this matter for contract logistics?

For a 3PL the scale of ID Logistics, the commercial question is whether humanoids can slot into processes designed for human bodies — shelving, pick faces, carton dimensions — without costly facility retrofits. The company operates approximately 450 logistics facilities worldwide, including 17 in Germany, serving retail, e-commerce, consumer goods and other sectors. That footprint means even a modest productivity gain from humanoid handling of repetitive tasks, if proven, could scale across a very large base.

The agreement also marks a further step in ID Logistics' broader effort to assess new automation technologies across its contract logistics operations. The company has been explicit about sequencing: it intends to identify suitable applications and measure their performance in real operating environments before considering any wider deployment.

What happens after the pilot?

The pilot's results will determine whether humanoid robots could support more complex logistics processes in the future. For now, the partnership remains focused on testing and evaluation rather than rolling humanoids out across ID Logistics' wider network.

The near-term trajectory is therefore well defined: four or five candidate use cases narrowed to one within weeks, a live pilot in a German facility within six months, and a go or no-go signal on more complex deployments to follow.