Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour robot arms are estimated to cost $100,000 each — and they could be dangerous to perform with, according to an expert

• Beyoncé has been performing with two giant robot arms during her Renaissance World Tour.
• Robotics expert Shariq Hashme told Insider they likely cost $100,000 each.

Beyoncé has ridden a diamond unicorn, dressed as a bee, and been hoisted into the sky on her Renaissance World Tour, which is now nearing the end of its European leg.

The most memorable stunts she's performed at her shows, however, have been with the help of two giant robotic arms.

During the spoken-word intro of "Cozy," a pair of robot arms appear on stage, each holding a metal square frame. Throughout the song, Beyoncé then poses within the frames, which move around her body, giving the impression of a moving portrait.

Later, as Bey prepares to perform "Church Girl," the robot arms scan the singer's white cape with ultraviolet light that causes a stained glass print to appear.

And finally, during her performance of "Heated," the arms cool Bey down by waving two large fans.

The technology is not only impressive, but it's also expensive.

According to Shariq Hashme, the founder of Prosper Robotics, which creates impressive robotic butlers to help with everyday household chores, the two arms Bey is using on her tour are estimated to cost approximately $100,000 each.

Hashme told Insider that the arms likely have what is known in the business as a "seven degree of freedom," meaning they can rotate in more complex ways than, say, ones with six degrees of freedom.

"What that means is the arm can reach any position and any orientation of its end effector in an infinite number of ways, whereas with a six-degree-of-freedom arm, you can only get there in one way," he said.

"One way you think about it is, the human elbow can kind of move around, even though your hand is fixed and that's not true for a six," he added.

"There's a big difference in the price between a seven and a six."

Despite the hefty price tag, however, Hashme said the technology is actually quite straightforward to program.

"You can essentially just draw how you want this thing to move, just draw a path and then just say, okay, when I press this button, do this path," he said.

Watching videos of Bey's performance of "Cozy," Hashme said it appears the robots are going through such preplanned motions.

"They aren't looking at what's going on and adjusting," he said. "It's moving in a very precise location and you can tell based on how they're moving, that they're moving in a very pre-coordinated way."

Having the robots move in pre-coordinated motions might seem a good thing for Beyoncé, to ensure each of her routines goes as planned and her performance looks identical every night.

But Hashme said performing in such close proximity to the robots, as Beyoncé does during "Cozy," could potentially be dangerous for the singer.

"If those things somehow mess up their path and hit Beyoncé, it looks like they would hurt a lot," he said.

Asked if that was likely, Hashme replied: "They can fail, but if you've run the motion a bunch of times then they probably won't fail."

"They probably have an emergency stop button behind the scenes anyway," he added.

If something were to go wrong, it would likely be due to human error, Hashme said.

"Let's say Beyoncé accidentally stood in the wrong place and this thing came and hit her in the head, that would hurt" said Hashme.

Given she's performed the same show 14 times already and is yet to set a foot wrong, we won't count on it.