Fincantieri maps a wider role for robots across its shipyards

Fincantieri says its BOOST² programme is moving from experimentation into everyday industrial deployment. The 14 October update describes more than 450 employees involved across 13 shipyards, including facilities in Italy, Romania and the United States. Its industrial plan provides for almost €100 million of investment in the programme.[1]

The company’s demonstration day at Castellammare di Stabia brought together technologies already operating, systems undergoing validation and future applications. That mixture is central to reading the rollout: individual projects are at different stages.[1]

Bring the welder to the structure

A ship spreads welding jobs through a large structure. A useful robot must reach each job, locate the joint and leave a record of the work. Movement and the operator’s handover are therefore part of the production system.[2]

MR4WELD, unveiled with Comau in June 2023, puts a six-axis welding arm on a tracked base. Its vision system identifies joints. At that announcement, production tests were still under way; Comau described one operator managing movement and welding, with digital tools recording production information and welded joints.[2]

Comau also said the partners would train shipyard staff to use and programme mobile robots. Operator preparation forms part of introducing the equipment.[2]

A humanoid remains a development project

A separate partnership with Generative Bionics, announced on 11 February 2026, takes the mobility problem in another direction. The four-year project aims to build a humanoid welder with locomotion for complex shipyard environments, AI-assisted manipulation and vision that monitors the seam.[3]

Fincantieri named Sestri Ponente as the testing site. The February timetable put initial shipyard tests by the end of 2026 and aimed to make operational functions available within two years. Those are development targets; the October update does not establish that the humanoid has entered production.[3][1]

A tracked machine defines a particular combination of movement, joint detection and welding. The humanoid project aims to extend where such work can happen. The production challenge is to make movement, setup and completion records dependable parts of an ordinary shift.[2][3]

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