Over the past few years, more and more humanoid robots have moved beyond the research and development stage and into the real world, taking on roles such as bartenders, concierges, deep-sea divers and companions for the elderly. Some of them work in warehouses and factories to assist humans with logistics and manufacturing production, while others are even more amazing, working in creative or emotionally charged communication roles such as orchestra conductors and conference receptions.
What is a humanoid robot?
Humanoid robots are robots that resemble and behave like humans. These robots are usually designed to mimic real human expressions, interactions and movements, equipped with an array of cameras, sensors, and artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.
Compared to previous industrial and service robots, humanoid robots are characterized by a high degree of simulation, autonomy, motion control, versatility and generality. Currently, humanoid robots have been able to play an active role in a wide range of industry scenarios such as the service industry, education, and healthcare.
Here are the 10 examples of the world’s leading humanoid robots:
Ameca – United Kingdom
Ameca is the newest and most advanced humanoid robot from Engineered Arts in the U.K. In 2021, Ameca was unveiled in a stunning fashion, and at one point was hailed as the “most human” robot ever. Three years later, at Mobile World Congress 2024, the second-generation Ameca, powered by GPT-4, was unveiled. The second generation of Ameca has the ability to visualize and its sensors can track the movement of an entire room. Secondly, Ameca also has more powerful facial and multiple voice recognition capabilities, and is able to mimic a wide range of vocal speech, including timbre, tone, and verbiage; it can naturally interact with humans and detect a person’s mood and age. In addition, Ameca is able to express common expressions such as disgust, surprise, and anger, as well as micro-expressions such as winking, wrinkling of the eyebrows, and shaking of the head. When communicating with humans, Ameca’s performance is smooth, natural and emotional. However, Ameca is not yet able to walk, and Engineering Arts plans to continue upgrading it in the future so that Ameca can walk and run.
Apollo – USA
The humanoid robot Apollo was developed by Apptronik, Inc. in the United States. Founded in 2016 as a laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, the company has developed more than 10 unique robots in the last decade.Released in August 2023, Apollo is 1.7 m tall, weighs 72.6 kg with a load of 25 kg, is motor-driven, and can work for up to 22 hours indoors and outdoors without restraint.Apollo is the first robot to work with humans in a Apollo is the first robot to work with humans in a factory, and is characterized by a modular design with multiple components, such as legs that can be replaced with fixed stakes to adapt to different occasions, and a battery that supports hot-swappable design to facilitate the humanoid robot’s battery life. Apollo is expected to be commercialized in 2025, with a proposed price tag of no more than $50,000. Apptronik said Apollo’s long-term goal is to be used in space exploration for complex tasks such as exploration and space operations.
Optimus – USA
As a leader in the humanoid robotics track, Tesla unveiled Optimus, the first-generation general-purpose humanoid robot, in September 2022. Optimus is 173cm tall, weighs approximately 73kg, has an integrated 2.3kWh battery, 28 joints throughout the body, and over 200 degrees of freedom throughout the entire body, with the palms of the hands capable of 11 degrees of freedom through 6 actuators. movements and can lift more than 20 pounds. Subsequently, after 3 iterations, Optimus can accomplish smooth walking, item grasping, item sorting, one-legged standing, yoga performance, shirt folding, and other fine movements. Optimus uses the same self-developed chip and vision solution as Tesla vehicles, software reuses Tesla’s car’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, and the arithmetic power invokes Tesla’s supercomputer, Dojo Supercomputer, and like the Tesla cars, passes through mass production. Tesla Motors through mass production and technological advances to control the cost of single-unit manufacturing. Musk said that the goal of Optimus is to replace human labor, and is expected to be mass-produced from 2025 to 2027, with a target price of about $20,000, which has been verified by trial in the Tesla factory.
Atlas – USA
Atlas, meaning Hercules in Greek mythology, is a jumping, back-flipping humanoid robot designed by Boston Dynamics for the U.S. Army. Released in 2013, Atlas is known for its superior dynamics and can be used in complex scenarios such as rescue work in dangerous environments. Boston Dynamics, a veteran robotics design company founded in 1992 by Professor Mark Leibert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been involved in the field of robotics for more than 30 years.Atlas is 1.5 meters tall, weighs about 80 kilograms, and has 28 degrees of freedom. It uses depth sensors to provide real-time sensing, and model predictive control technology to improve movement, moving at speeds of more than 5 miles per hour, and is capable of successfully perform maneuvers such as leaping balance beams, crossing ramps, and continuous backflips, and is known as the most dynamic performing humanoid robot. In January 2023, Boston Dynamics released the Atlas humanoid robot video, Atlas is on the construction site to assist human beings, to complete the bridge, climbing stairs, flying spinning, to human beings to throw the toolkit, front-flip, and other sensitive actions.Atlas single unit is worth about $ 2 million, is more as a research and development platform, has not been announced commercialization plans.
Jia Jia – China
Jia Jia is the first Chinese humanoid robot developed by researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and was born in 2016. Jia Jia is 1.6 meters tall, with delicate features and a very beautiful appearance, and is initially equipped with functions such as human-robot dialogue comprehension, facial micro-expressions, matching of mouth and body movements, and autonomous localization and navigation in a wide range of dynamic environments. In addition, USTC proposed and explored for the first time the definition of robot character, as well as the robot image harmonized with its character and function, endowing Jiajia with the character of kindness, diligence and wisdom. According to the person in charge of Jiajia’s R&D team, Jiajia’s application in the future will be reflected in three levels, the first step is in industrial applications, which is a relatively common application; the second step is applied in public services, such as banks, shopping malls, etc.; and the final step is to be applied in the family, which also includes hospitals, senior living centers and so on.
Figure 01 – United States
Figure is an AI robotics company founded in 2022 that specializes in designing automated universal humanoid robots. The company raised $675 million in the company’s latest round of funding from investors including NVIDIA, Microsoft, OpenAI Venture Fund and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, valuing the company at $2.6 billion.In October 2023, Figure officially launched Figure 01, the company’s first humanoid robot, targeting the Tesla Optimus. Figure 01 is electrically driven, 167cm tall, weighing 60kg, designed to carry 20kg, with a step speed of 1.5m/s and a range of up to 5 hours, with the ability to walk steadily, pick up items autonomously, carry items and navigate autonomously.In January 2024, Figure 01 spent 10 hours on end-to-end training, learning to autonomously complete the entire process of opening the lid of the machine, putting in the coffee, and starting the machine. That same month, Figure signed a partnership agreement with automaker BMW to deploy the humanoid robot at BMW’s Spartanburg plant in South Carolina, USA.
KIME – Spain
KIME is a humanoid robotic bartender developed by Macco Robotics to serve beer, coffee, wine, snacks, salads, etc. Macco is a Spanish food tech company specializing in the development and manufacturing of robotics and AI-based food and beverage products and processes. KIME dispenses up to 253 items per hour, and pours two beers every six seconds. This significantly increases productivity and reduces costs. Meanwhile, KIME has mastered up to 10 different languages, is equipped with a touch screen and app-enabled ordering features, and has a built-in payment system for fully automated reception and enhanced user experience. In addition, KIME is made of antimicrobial material, avoiding unnecessary contact with food, which is more conducive to food safety, and can be used in restaurants, bars, commercial centers, parks, and airports and train stations.
GR-1 – China
In July 2023, Chinese robotics company Fourier Intelligence unveiled its first general-purpose bipedal humanoid robot product, GR-1, at the opening ceremony of the World Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2023, and opened pre-sales in September of the same year, with rapid progress in commercialization. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Shanghai, China, Fourier Intelligence focuses on the field of rehabilitation and medical robotics, and in 2019, Fourier Intelligence launched the universal humanoid robot project.GR-1 is 165cm tall, weighs 55kg, loads 50kg, and has 54 degrees of freedom in the whole body.It adopts an integrated self-developed joint module as the actuator, and has a powerful and flexible motion performance, which simulates a human’s straight-knee GR-1 can work together with human to complete the action, and can be applied in various scenarios such as industry, rehabilitation, home and scientific research.
Nadine – Singapore
Developed by researchers at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, Nadine is a humanoid social robot with lifelike skin, hair, facial expressions and upper body movements that operates on a mechanism similar to Apple’s Siri, with an appearance modeled entirely on that of its creator, Prof. Nadia Thalmann. According to the researchers, Nadine has an attractive perception-processing/decision-making-interaction framework that recognizes faces, speech, gestures, and objects, as well as an affective system that mimics personalities and moods.Nadine is able to work in a variety of environments, taking on roles such as receptionist and customer service.
Pepper – Japan
Pepper is one of the flagship humanoid robots of Japan’s SoftBank Robotics, released and publicly marketed in 2015, with major applications in education and healthcare.Standing at a height of 120 centimetres, Pepper is equipped with speech recognition technology, emotion recognition technology that analyzes facial expressions and vocal intonation, and articulation technology that renders anthropomorphic body language, allowing it to comfortably communicate with humans. Pepper is a programmable platform that can serve multiple industries such as retail, finance, health care, etc. In 2017, Pepper entered the main branch of Woori Bank in Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea, to provide customers with services such as window guides and product introductions, etc.; in 2019, Pepper was introduced to the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, to provide multi-language communication, course and library information query services. Additionally, during the pandemic, Pepper was used to monitor contactless care and communication for the elderly, among other things.
Since the advent of the robotics proposition, concerns about its potential risks and the impact it could have on the labor market have continued. However, the visible value of humanoid robots in terms of improved labor efficiency, cost reduction and high safety in the face of complex and dangerous tasks has outweighed their potential risks.
Currently, the commercialization of humanoid robots at home and abroad is still in the early stage, but more and more companies have already committed to this. the rapid development of AI models, the market’s expectations of humanoid robots, and the formation of the environment in which companies compete with each other will further expand the application of humanoid robots, and ultimately humanoid robots, like computers and automobiles, will come closer to people’s daily lives, promoting economic growth and social development. development.
