Computer scientists flew a human-size robot developed at USC to a research lab in Germany. Booking a seat was cheaper than sending it as freight.

The robots are coming… and they’re flying economy class.

Researchers from the University of Southern California checked a human-size robot onto an LAX flight Monday to save money on shipping costs.

“It’s the cheapest way of transportation,” USC computer science professor Stefan Schaal said via cell phone from Germany.

The Athena robot, as the bipodal robot is named, was headed to Germany where researchers will teach it to stand, walk and eventually assist in disaster relief efforts.

The robot was manufactured by Sarcos, a Salt Lake City, Utah-based company, and assembled and programmed at Schaal’s Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab at USC.

What’s scarier? The specter of autonomous robots… or the horde of reporters that chased the Athena robot through LAX on Monday?

Schaal and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany will continue to fine tune the robot. Schaal hopes to tech Athena how to reliably perform tasks such as opening doors, shutting off valves or operating a pump.

“There remains a lack of understanding of autonomous systems that can reliably perform useful activities,” Schaal said in an emailed statement. “The Fukushima disaster has demonstrated how far away robotics research still is from creating useful systems for our daily life.”

Athena was developed with funds from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research program.

Schaal, who splits his time between the U.S. and Germany, is working on a second, in-door robot meant for helping elderly and people with physical disabilities. That robot will remain at USC.