Dongfeng Motor to Deploy Self-Developed Humanoid Robots in Factories Starting October
Dongfeng Motor announced that its self-developed humanoid robot, named "Xiao Dong," will enter manufacturing plants in October to perform material sorting and quality inspection tasks. The company plans small-batch pilot trials by the end of the year, aiming to achieve human-equivalent capability by the end of the following year. Automakers are increasingly deploying embodied AI into manufacturing lines to boost automation and accelerate commercialization. This effort illustrates how automotive manufacturers can share and reuse core AI stack and model technology between smart vehicles and industrial robotics. Alongside the humanoid robot, Dongfeng introduced its quadruped robot "Yuan Zai," designed for multi-modal perception, autonomous navigation, and store guiding or facility inspection. Dongfeng's leadership emphasized that vehicles themselves represent another form of embodied AI, allowing seamless AI model reuse across products.
## BACKGROUND
Embodied AI refers to artificial intelligence agents embedded within physical bodies—such as robots or autonomous vehicles—that directly interact with the physical world. Automotive AI models are foundation models trained on perception, spatial understanding, and decision-making data to drive smart cockpits and autonomous driving systems.