World's greatest android projects

Latest update:    09/07/2012


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1.  The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) of Japan in conjunction with Kawada Industries has now released the HRP-4C humanoid.  This humanoid stands 1.58 meters tall (62 in) and weighs 43 Kg = 95 pounds.  It can walk slowly and looks like a young lady.  She has 30 DOF and will sell for about 20 million Yen or $200,000.  Some videos are here.

        

2. Kokoro and Osaka University have developed a new life-like android called Actroid DER3 (successor to DER2).  These androids look very human and talk and move their heads, arms, hands, and bodies.

    DER2    (article link)  (site link)  (youtube link)

    DER3    (article link)  (site link)  (youtube link)

            der2-2.jpg (39365 bytes)     

3. The JST ERATO Asada project and Osaka University have built a child-sized android  called CB2 (Child robot with biometric body).  It is 130 cm. tall, weighs 33 Kg.,  and has 56 DOF.  It has cameras for eyes and microphones for ears.  It also has 197 tactile sensors embedded in the silicone skin.  Android page.   Link 1Link 2Link 3;   video 1video 2video 3;

            

4.  The Robot Cub Consortium (11 European organizations) have built a very sophisticated child sized humanoid called Robot Cub. This humanoid has 53 DOF, stands 104 cm tall, and weighs 22 Kg.   More than 40 people at 11 institutions across Europe have developed this humanoid.   There are two videos here and here.

            

5.  KITECH (Korean Institute of Industrial Technology) has introduced another android called EveR-3.   She is 1.57 m tall (5'2") and weighs 135 pounds (60 Kg) and  is capable of 16 facial expressions. She has 35 DOF in her upper body.

 (article link) (article link)

(youtube link) (youtube link)  

    

    EveR-3

6a.  Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University has had a doppelganger robot made of himself.   Ishiguro is the same professor leading the team which built the actroid (see below) and actroid DER and actroid DER2 (shown above).  This android has 46 degrees of freedom.  There are several videos available here.   Another news item is here.

          

6b.  Doppelgangers are getting popular.  Here is one of Zou Renti (L) which was shown at the 2006 China Robot Expo held recently in Beijing.

      China_Zou_Renti.jpg (27022 bytes)    

7. Osaka University & Kokoro Inc. have produced an upgraded version of the Actroid humanoid called Repliee Q1 for the Expo 2005 World's Fair which is now going on in Nagoya, Japan.  Repliee Q1 has silicon skin and looks very human as she sits and gentures to you. This robot has 41 DOF (versus 31 for Actroid).

repQ1.jpg (47333 bytes)   <= Repliee Q1

 

8. Another Korean group at KITECH has produced an android which is very much like Repliee-Q1.  It is called EveR-1.  It is about 1.6m tall and weighs about 50 Kg.  The team, headed by Baeg Moon-hong, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Thursday (5/4/06) took the wraps off the female android, named EveR-1, during an exhibition at the Seoul Education Culture Center. Baeg, who spent just 3 billion Won (3.16M USD) in creating EveR-1 in a year, is looking to exceed his Japanese rivals by making the model move four limbs by late this year.  

     eve1.jpg (15805 bytes)    eve3.jpg (157799 bytes)   

    EveR - 1      KITECH 

9. New Asimo humanoid

Honda has introduced their updated Asimo humanoid.  It is 130 cm tall, weighs 54 Kg = 119 pounds, and has 34 DOF.  Here is a nice video.

         

10.  Here is Aiko a very anthropomorphic humanoid built by Le Trung (Brampton, ON, Canada).  She currently has 23 DOF of which 10 are in her fingers. In future she will have 12 more DOF.  She is 1.52 m tall, but cannot stand up by herself yet.  Trung has some videos here.  Great job in only one year!

          

         Aiko                     with Trung

 

11.  Kokoro Dreams and Osaka University announced a sitting android Nov 19, 2003 at the International Robot Exhibition 2003 in Tokyo. This android is called Actroid and it is VERY realistic. Actroid specification:   The system consists of three separate units:  Humanoid part:  Height = 1.3m;  width =  0.42m;  sitting length =  0.725m;   weight = 30 Kg.  The android has 31 DOF.   It operates on compressed air and electricity (120w).  Control unit:  Height = 0.6m;  width = 0.75m;  length = 0.6m;  weight = 40 Kg;  contains main computer.  Compressor unit:  Height = 1.37m;  width = 0.9m;  length = 0.9m;  power consumption = 3.7 kw;  noise < 50 db. Here is a movie of Actroid.  Here is another article about Actroid.

actroid1.jpg (20974 bytes)     actroid3.jpg (25732 bytes)  

Actroid                      with friends.

12.  China has introduced a singing android called Dion.  While it is not nearly as advanced as the Actroid shown above, it is very life-like.  It is a life-sized standing android with a very womanly shape.   Story and video are here. 

        

 
13. The Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing introduced a new female humanoid called Rong Cheng on August 7, 2006. This humanoid is 168 cm tall and weighs 60 kg. The primary designer was Yue Hongqiang and his team took one year to build this
humanoid at a cost of $37,500 (300,000 Yuan). Rong Cheng will be sent to Sichuan Science Museum in Chengdu where she will be a receptionist and tour guide for the museum.   

Article      Article      Video (Quicktime)

     Rong_Cheng1.jpg (21703 bytes)     Rong_Cheng2.jpg (70383 bytes)      

14. KIST has just introduced the Mahru-Z robot maid (2010).  It is 130 cm. tall, weighs 55 Kg, and has 3 fingers on each hand.  It has 35 DOF.    Link 1Link 2 Link 3;   video 1 video 2

         Z (right)

15. KIST introduced the Mahru-R in 2009.  It is 145 cm. tall, weighs 67 Kg., and 35 DOF and has 3 fingers on each hand and walks at 2.6 Km./hr. Link 1 video 1 video 2

          

16. KIST introduced the Mahru-M in 2008.  It is about 150 cm. tall, weighs 62 Kg., and rolls around on wheels.  Probably 20 DOF.   Link 1

   M (left)      

17. Choromet (HRP-2m) is a fancy toy humanoid.  It is 35 cm. tall, weighs 1.5 Kg., and has 20 DOF.  Its cost is about 500,000 yen ($4,400).  Choromet can lie down     and stand-up by itself. It can also stand on one leg. It uses a Linux operating system.  Choromet was developed by Japan Advanced Industrial Science and     Technology Institute (AIST) and 4 private companies.

    Link 1video 1;         

18. E-nuvo is a 126 cm. tall humanoid built by Nippon Institute of Technology. It  weighs 15 Kg., and has a total of 21 DOF.  It uses Lithium Ion battery power.    Link 1video 1

        

19. ATOM-7xp is a new humanoid (January 2010) developed by Dan Mathias at FutureBots over the last 8 years. It is 158 cm. tall, weighs 73 Kg., and has 49 DOF

    (including 10 for the head and 10 for the hands). 

       

20. Pal Technology of the UAE (United Arab Emirates) has announced a very sophisticated new humanoid called REEM-A.   It stands 1.45 m tall, weighs 41 Kg. and has 30 DOF (Degrees of Freedom).   Their specification is here.   There are some nice videos here.

       

 

21.  Kawada has now released the HRP-3P humanoid.  This robot stands 160 cm tall and weighs 65 Kg.  It has a total of 36 degrees of freedom.   Kawada's HRP-3P page is here (in Japanese of course)  Here is an article from Engadget.   Here is the full HRP-3P specification with lots of nice pictures.   Here is the AIST press release.

      hrp-3p.jpg (50697 bytes)      hrp-3p2.jpg (16303 bytes)     

22.   Tmsuk of Japan has produced a new robot which they call Kiyomori.   They have their own website with videos here.   Kiyomori is presented as a Samurai warrior.   This video from Youtube shows it walking.

     kiyomori3.jpg (40944 bytes)   

23.  JVC has released a new small humanoid robot called J4.   It stands 20 cm tall and weighs only 0.77 Kg but it has 26 degrees of freedom.  Here is a nice presentation from Plyojump.

     J4_1.jpg (20196 bytes)     J4_2.jpg (15147 bytes)   

24.   Fujitsu has now released the HOAP-3.   This small humanoid stands 60 cm tall and weighs 9 Kg.    Here is one article.  This humanoid has 28 degrees of freedom and uses a 1.1 GHz pentium processor running RT-Linux.

     hoap3_2005.jpg (66713 bytes)      hoap3_1.jpg (326957 bytes)    

 

25.  A British group has produced a performing robot called Robothespian.   This project began in January of 2005. Robothespian has about 30 DOF, stands 175 cm tall (plus 18 cm stand) and weighs 33 Kg.   This robot actor is now available for 55,000 pounds (US$ 85,000, or 7.9M Yen).    There are two videos here and here.

             

26. Fesco, the pneumatics experts, have built a huge android called Tron X.  This android stands about 2.8 m (9 feet) tall and weighs about 300 Kg (660 lbs).  It is operated by over 200 pneumatic cylinders of all different sizes. Aparently this android was built in Australia in 1997.  Perhaps the current model is a second version??

   Tron_X1.jpg (30013 bytes)     tron_X2.jpg (37405 bytes)  

          Tron-X -  200+ DOF

27. A company called Kibertron Inc, located in Sofia, Bulgaria has a full scale humanoid project called Kibertron.  Their humanoid looks like a terminator. It is 1.75m tall (5' 9") and weighs 90 Kg (200 pounds). They have a staff of 23.  Kibertron has 82 DOF - that's a lot.  The hands have 20 DOF each and the arms have 8 more DOF for a total of 28 for each arm & hand. 

Here is their project outline.  

     kibertron_front_back.jpg (161258 bytes)      kibertron_arm2.jpg (114037 bytes)  

      front & back           arm & hand

28. KAIST announced January 6, 2005, a new humanoid which they call HUBO.  The project leader is Professor Jun-ho Oh, who has also been named "KAISTian" of the year.  Their humanoid has 41 DOF, stands 1.25m tall (49") and weighs about 55 Kg (121 pounds).  Their android can walk, talk, and understand speech.  This robot walks at a rate of 1.25 km/hr. Clearly Korea is catching up in the world humanoid development race.   This group is located in Daejeon, Korea.

Hubo.jpg (67661 bytes)   Hubo_walking.jpg (160790 bytes)

    Hubo                      walking

Hubo can move his fingers independently (whereas ASIMO cannot). Here are a couple more articles:  Chosun News and Theautochannel.    

29.   KIST has built two humanoids called Mahru (male) and Ahru (female).. The development team is lead by Bum-Jae You.  This group claims their humanoid is the world's first network-based humanoid.  It thinks like a human and learns like a human. It stands about 1.5m tall (60") and weighs about 67 Kg (147 pounds).  It can walk, talk, and understand speech.  It walks at 0.9 km/hr.  It has 35 degrees of freedom.  The team  are now working on Mahru II which will be released in 2009.    

     KR_smart_bot.jpg (31767 bytes)          Mahru2.jpg (149106 bytes)       

             Mahru                        Mahru II

30. September 10, 2001 Fujitsu Laboratories Inc announced their toy android called HOAP-1, an 18" tall 13 pound android with 20 degrees of freedom. The cost is $41,000 or 4.8 million Yen.  Now they have announced another android called the HOAP-2.   Its about the same size.  

 hoap1.jpg (16572 bytes)     hoap2.jpeg (20106 bytes)     

    HOAP-1                  HOAP-2

31. On Sept. 19, 2003 Sony announced another small humanoid called QRIO.  Its quite similar to the SDR-4X.  It can walk better and can recover from falls better.  

        qrio1.jpeg (13796 bytes)      QRIO

32. Sony introduced the SDR-4X for Robodex 2002. Great new android to compete against the HOAP-1.  Movies. Many pictures. Article & more pictures.

sdr_4x_4.jpg (12109 bytes)

33. Kawada Industries Inc. has introduced the HRP-2P for Robodex 2002. This humanoid appears to be very impressive. It is 154 cm (60") tall, weighs 58kg (127 lbs) and has 30 DOF. Here is a news release (in Japanese). Notice the LACK of a battery pack.  Here is a new story about HRP2.  There is a new link to some videos of HRP-2 in action.  

   hrp-2p_1.jpg (15553 bytes)     hrp-2p_2.jpg (11072 bytes) 

34. A dental training robot called Simroid has been introduced by Dr. Naotake Shibui, of the Nippon Dental University in Tokyo, who collaborated with technicians at Kokoro Co. to develop the robot.   It looks very human and even squeals in pain when the trainee makes a mistake.

         Simroid

35.  Toyota Motor Company has now introduced a humanoid that can play the violin.  This shows an improvement in the dexterity of the fingers.  This robot stands 1.52 m tall and it has 17 joints in its arms and hands.  Video of robot playing "Pomp and Circumstance #5" by Elgar is here.

       

36. Toyota Motor Company announced their long awaited SUITE of androids on March 11, 2004 in Tokyo.  They plan 4 models (shown on this and the next 3 entries)  They are called partner robots and are designed to function as personal assistants for humans.  The first one is the walking version. This android is 1.2m (4') tall and weighs 35 Kg (77 lbs).  It is intended to assist the elderly. 

   

    Japanese page      

37. Toyota plans to show their androids for the first time at the EXPO 2005 Exhibition of Global Harmony which will take place next year (from March 25, 2005 to September 25, 2005 in Aichi, Japan.  The second model is the rolling version. This humanoid rolls around on wheels but has a human-looking upper body.  It is intended for manufacturing purposes.  It is 1m (40") tall and also weighs 35 Kg (77 lbs).

  Japanese page  

38.  Toyota's third model is easily the most unusual robot of the group.  This model is called the mountable version.  It is basically a chair which can WALK!   WOW!  What a concept!  It stands 1.8 m (6') tall and weighs 75 Kg (165 lbs). Notice that the person in the chair is wearing a crash helmet.  One hopes that the helmet will not be necessary.

    

  Japanese page    

39. The fourth model being produced by Toyota is a wire-operated version.  No data were given about its size or weight.  It is lighter than the others and can move more quickly. Toyota has movies of their robots in action on their site.

   

  Japanese page      

40. Two new humanoids called ARNE and ARNEA were announced August 5, 2003 in Russia. They were built by a St. Petersburg company called New Era and students from the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. These humanoids stand 1.23 m (4') tall and weighs 61 Kg (134 lbs). They have 28 DOF.  The project, lead by Alexander Yakovlev of the Robot Technical Sector of New Era, has been running for two years.  

   

41. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Tokyu Construction Co., Ltd., National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology ("AIST"), and Honda have a new project called HRP-1S.  The humanoid was built by Honda and the control software was developed by the AIST. This article shows the humanoid operating a backhoe. We assume the humanoid has the same number of DOF as Honda's Asimo or P3.

42. Beijing Institute of Technology   has another humanoid project now which is called BHR-2.   This humanoid is called “Huitong”, the child. It is 160 cm tall and weighs about 63 Kg.  Little other information has been released, but we assume at has at least  32 DOF and was probably developed by the same group who developed BHR-1.

    BHR-2.jpg (50655 bytes)    BHR-2 

43. KAIST has another major humanoid development effort at the RIT (Robot Intelligence Technology) laboratory in Daejeon, Korea.  The project leader is Professor Jong-Hwan Kim. They have about 15 people working on the project and they have built a series of 6 or 7 humanoid robots the latest of which is the HSR-VI also called HanSaRam.    It has 25 DOF consisting of 12 DC motors and 13 servo motors.

     hsr-vi.jpg (127265 bytes)    HSR 

44.   Beijing Institute of Technology has a big humanoid project called BHR-1. This android is 1.58 m (5' 2") tall and weighs 76 Kg (167 lbs). It has 32 DOF. It can walk at 1 km/hr with 33 cm steps. The project leader is Prof. Li Kejie.Other staff include Qiang Huang, Yuechao Wang, Min tan, Tianmiao Wang and Jinsong Wang.  This android appears to be very advanced and also similar to several of the Japanese androids shown above.

beijing2.jpg (14433 bytes)  BHR-1

45. The Aircraft and Mechanical Systems Division of Kawada Industries Inc. built the H7 android for Univ of Tokyo. They have now started a project of their own using some of the same technology from H6 & H7. Its called Isamu.

isamu1.jpg (35391 bytes)     isamu2.jpg (127611 bytes) 

Isamu is 1.5 m (5') tall and .6 m wide and weighs about 55 Kg (121 lbs).  It has 32 DOF and you can see that the head is more anthropomorphic than H6 or H7.

46. ECCE robot (Embodied Cognition in a Compliantly Engineered Robot) is an unusual    humanoid in that the muscles and skeleton are modeled after our human skeleton and muscles.  It was built by a consortium of universities including the University of Essex, University of Sussex, University of Zurich, University of Belgrade, and University of Munich, and The Robot Studio .  It is a spin-off of the Cronos project. It has 80 DOF. It was introduced August 11, 2009.    video 1video 2;

         

47. Kawada Industries introduced the NEXTAGE assembly robot on November 19, 2009. It is very well designed a nd looks great. It has 15 DOF and can lift payload of 1.5 Kg.   video 1video 2;  

               

48.   The University of Tehran (Iran) has introduced a nice robot called Surena-2.   This robot looks like numerous robots in this list.  It is 1.45 m tall and weighs 45 Kg.   It has 22 DOF (12 in its legs, 8 in its hands, and 2 in its head).  This robot follows a very primitive Surena-1 which had only 8 DOF.    Surena-2 took over 10,000 man-hours of effort to complete. (article link)  (article link)   (article link)  (article link)  

           Surena II

 
49. Hiroaki Kitano of Kitano miotic Systems (Tokyo, Japan) which is a subsidiary of Japan Science and Technology Corp (seethe entry on the left - #11) which is in turn funded by the Japanese government is building an android wich he calls SIG (Symbiotic Intelligence Group). The photo below shows SIG and Tatsuya Matsui.  Kitano has challenged the world of android builders.  He believes that his android will be the archetype.  We shall see about that. By the way, they are looking for people to join their project.

  new_proj.jpg (45399 bytes)   sig2.gif (54289 bytes)   

           Matsui-san      and SIG

50. Hiroaki Kitano of Kitano Symbiotic Systems (Tokyo, Japan) which is a subsidiary of Japan Science and Technology Corp which is in turn funded by the Japanese government is building an android baby called Pino. Pino has 29 motors and stands about 75 cm (30") tall and weighs 8 kg. Here is a link to a Time Magazine article. A new Pino link I recently found.   WOW! Kitano is now giving away software and hardware designs which were used for Pino.  Just go HERE and sign up.

    pino2.jpg (8605 bytes)  Pino - 8KB

    SIG design link

    PINO design link.

51. Kitano now has another small android called Morph3.  It is 38 cm tall (about 15 inches), has 30 DOF and weighs about 2.4 Kg = 5.3 pounds. It is also using Bluetooth communications.

 morph3-1.jpg (31990 bytes)   morph3-3.jpg (43549 bytes)

     Morph3  

 

52. Early in October of 2001, Kitano Symbiotic Systems announced another project called "Morph".  Morph uses the Bluetooth wireless communication protocol to pass commands to the android and to send feedback from the android back to the main computer. Here is another article.  Murata is a co-developer in this project.  Morph has 26 DOF and stands about 13.6" (35cm) tall.  My best source, Gianluca sent me some links with pictures.        

morph2.jpg (9255 bytes)   morph3.jpg (7564 bytes)

53. The Electrotechnical Laboratory  in Tsukuba, Japan is building a humanoid at the Humanoid Interaction Laboratory under the direction of professor Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Their humanoid is called Jack,  Their android has cost way over $1,000,000 - and its still not finished yet.  Jack was also featured in this month's Wired Magazine article about Androids. (Sept. 2000, pgs 252 - 272).  The legs are just barely visible in the background. Gordon Cheng just sent me another picture of "Jack" and a link to a nice article. Jack has 46 DOF.

ETL_new.jpg (56990 bytes)   Jack_etl.jpg (54551 bytes)

54. Tohoku University now has another project called "Saika3". This android looks alot like the Honda androids. It is 1.27m tall and .5 m wide and weighs 47Kg.  Saika3 has 30 DOF

saika3-group.jpg (86587 bytes)

Saika-3 Group 

 

55. Jouhou System Kougaku laboratory at Tokyo University has a new project called H7.  Its another biped similar to H6. Another H7 link. (<=New link)

 H7_04.jpg (18248 bytes)   H7_05.jpg (13197 bytes)

   H7 is clearly very similar in size and capabilities to H6. They have an 18Meg video of H7 walking at the Kawada Industries airport where the above pictures were taken. 

56. Jouhou System Kougaku laboratory at Tokyo University has a project called H6.  Its similar to H5.

h6_02.jpg (17253 bytes)  h6_05.jpg (29095 bytes)  

H6 is 1.37 m (4'6") tall, about .59 m (23") wide, and weighs 55 kg (121 lb). It has 35 DOF.

Note:  Saika and H5 have been moved to the Historical Android Projects page.

   
57. There is now a second major project at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) - called LOLA. This humanoid will have 22 actively driven DOF  The legs have 7 DoFs each, while the upper body has two and each arm has four. 

 

     TUM_LOLA.jpg (31572 bytes)   LOLA

58. There is a big android project going on at Institute for Applied Mechanics at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Their android is called "Johnnie" and it can already walk. They are now trying to make it RUN. This means there are two major projects in Munich. Johnnie was on display at the Hannover Fair this spring. They have two videos on their site.

Johnnie2_Munich.jpg (129180 bytes)      

59.  Here is another project called TwendyOne from the Sugano Lab at Waseda University in Tokyo.  The big advance in this humanoid is its very sophisticated hands with fingers which have tactile sensors.  The humanoid has 47 DOF and stands 1.47 m tall and weighs 111 Kg.  They have a couple of movies here.

    

    Twendy One

 
60. I received an email from Dr. Davut Akdas. He has built the first humanoid in Turkey at Balikesir University in Northeastern Turkey.
His humanoid is called RoboTurk. It has a total of 23 DOF including 12 DOF in the legs, 5 DOF in the body and 2 DOF in the arms.
The weight is 55 Kg and the height is 150 cm. His humanoid can walk forward, backward, and sideways. It can even climb small
steps. Wow! Great job!

        

61. Prof. Gordon Wyeth and several of his students have started a project called GuRoo (for Grossly Underfunded Roo) at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia.  GuRoo will have 23 degrees of freedom and will stand 1.2 m tall. Its projected weight is 30kg. Guroo participated in the recent Robocup 2002 in Japan.  The team has 6 people. One of the team members, Damien Kee, has posted some videos of their android taking its first tentative steps. Neat!

     guroo1.jpg (157454 bytes)   

62. Japan Science and Technology Corp   (Kyoto, Japan) has recently    revealed a 5 year project to build a humanoid robot. This project began in October of 1996. The project leader is Dr. Mitsuo Kawato and they have a staff of about 18. Their humanoid robot is called DB (see below).

  JST_DB.jpg (33179 bytes)    32KB image

 

63. The Technical University of Darmstadt has a humanoid project underway now.   Their humanoid is called Lara.  It is 130 cm tall and has 18 DOF which consist of 38 Nitinol wire muscles.  The team leader isProfessor Oskar von Stryk and they have about 15 students working on the project.

     lara.jpg (25859 bytes)    Lara  

64. The Shadow project  (London, England) This group is developing a humanoid bipedal walking machine.  They also have several products for sale.   Their staff includes about 14 people. Below is an image of their bipedal walker.

          shadow.jpg (212893 bytes)     208K

65.  Waseda University Humanoid project (Tokyo, Japan) Their android is about 6 feet tall and weighs over 600 pounds.  It can       walk, but just barely. Both this android and Honda's android were featured on the PBS program called "Robots Rising" which aired three times in March, 1998. The Waseda Humanoid project is composed of six groups:

Below are images of Hadalay-2 and Wabian.

hadaly2.jpg (155913 bytes)    wabian.jpg (138219 bytes)      

66. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tokyo (AIST) supports 15 research institutes throughout Japan including the 8 in Tsukuba Science City north of Tokyo. They are sponsoring a humanoid project which was begun in 1998. They actually have a large number of projects.

HRP_ETL.JPG (41062 bytes)   walker_etl.jpg (48202 bytes)  

Above we see a P3 and on the right are the legs of HRP learning to walk.

 

67. Chalmers University also has a full scale android project called Priscilla which was started in the summer of 2000. She is based on a full sized skeleton of a human. She will be powered by hydraulic cylinders.  You can see that she has binocular vision.

priscilla.jpg (150967 bytes)    Priscilla.

 

68. The University of Tokyo has a big project called Telesar2.  It consists of two major systems:  1. The anthropomorphic upper body with arms and head mounted on a rotating tower.  and 2) a control system which has several monitors and two hand controls which the human operator wears on his/her hands.  This seems quite unique.  The hands seems to be very high quality.  The project is lead by Dr. Tadakuma of the Tachi Lab of the graduate school of Information Science and Technology at the Univ of Tokyo.  They have lots of videos on their site.  They exhibited their systems at the World EXPO 2005 in AICHI, Japan from June 9 to June 19, 2005

   telestar2.jpg (209479 bytes)     Telesar 2.

    telestar1.jpg (359562 bytes)      telestar_hand.jpg (300657 bytes)   

69.  The Machine Control Laboratory at KAIST at Teajon, Korea has another humanoid project called the KAIST Humanoid Robot (KHR-1). This project began in January of 2002 and now includes Prof. Jun-Ho Oh and 12 students. The KHR-1 stands 1.2 m tall and weighs 48 Kg.  It has 21 DOF and can walk.  There are videos on their site. 

   khr1.jpeg (96114 bytes)     khr2.jpeg (90555 bytes)

70. The ARICC (Advanced Robotics and Intelligent Control Centre) in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Singapore Polytechnic has a major humanoid project going in which they are building soccer playing humanoids. They have built several humanoids, the latest of which is called Robo-Erectus III.  It stands 50 cm tall and has 22 DOF. The project includes about 15 members and is lead by Prof. Changjiu Zhou.

Sing3.jpg (43415 bytes)  Sing4.jpg (42148 bytes) 

71. Imperial College London have two humanoid projects.  They have an upper half of a humanoid similar to COG - called Ludwig.  They also have two small humanoids called Flip & Flop which stand about 14" tall.  They have movies of Ludwig. The primary builders are: Murray Shanahan, Yiannis Demiris, Dave Randell, and Mark Witkowski.  

  ludwig1.jpeg (54199 bytes)    flipflop.jpg (138225 bytes)   

    Ludwig                  Flip & Flop

72. Tohoku University also has a bipedal walking robot project.  This project is under the direction of Prof. Takashi Emura at the Emura Laboratory.   They have 4 professors and about 20 students. Their goal is to build a human-type autonomous robot.  They have been working on the project for at least a year. Below is an image of their bipedal walker - called Monroe after Marilyn Monroe.

   monroe.jpg (17426 bytes)   17KB image 

73. The Politecnico di Torino has a major humanoid project.  It is called Isaac.  The leader is Prof. Guiseppe Menga and 7 students are also working on the project.  Isaac is about 61 cm ( 24 inches) tall and weighs about 7 kg (15 pounds) It has 16 DOF and it is driven by a PC104. Their humanoid won 2nd place in the Robocup 2003.

     isaacteam.jpeg (30936 bytes)    Isaac & team.

74. A Chinese android was announced December 1, 2000. This android is 1.4 meters (55 inches) tall and weighs 20kg (44 lbs). It was built at China Science and Technology University for National Defense in Changsha, Hunan, China. Aparently they built another android back in 1990. They say "Pioneer" can walk and speak in several languages. See above article for details.

   china_robot.jpg (14271 bytes)   Pioneer (14KB)

75. Chalmers University in Goteburg, Sweden has 3 projects now. They have the Elvis project which is now working with their second prototype, and a new small walking android called Elvina.  Their staff is about 13.

elvis_new.jpg (31557 bytes)   elvina.jpg (55663 bytes)

   Elvis #2                  Elvina

76. Massachusetts Institute of Technology - the COG project   Cambridge, Mass, USA   This project is developing a humanoid too.  Their humanoid has a head with four eyes (two for close up and two for distance), two arms and a torso, but it has no legs yet. They have two professors and about 7 students.  They also claim about 10 alumni. The project leaders are Rodney Brooks and Lynn Stein. Some of the best pix of COG are on Rodney Brooks home page. Below are images of COG and a close-up of its head (with 4 eyes).

 cog1.jpg (9652 bytes)   coghead.jpg (24442 bytes)    

76b.  The MIT leg lab has built a set of legs which is intended to be married to the COG torso soon. The legs, called the M2 project, are featured in this month's Wired Magazine article about Androids. (Sept. 2000, pgs 252 - 272).

     MIT_M2.jpg (113179 bytes)     111KB

77. MIT has a new project called Coco. It is supposed to be a small or perhaps a baby gorilla. It has 15 DOF and weighs about 20 pounds. Coco  is about 12" (30 cm) square.

coco-front1.gif (92534 bytes)   coco-top.gif (34414 bytes)  

78. Yokohama National University has a bipedal walking robot project too. This project is under the direction of Prof. Atsuo Kawamura at the Kawamura Laboratory. They have at least 5 staff members. Their goal is to build a human-type autonomous robot.  They have been working on the project for at least a year. Below is an image of their bipedal walker.

   kawabiped.jpg (19691 bytes)    19KB image

79. Fukuda Lab at Nagoya University has a project called the Biological Inspired Robot System (BIRS).  Their robot appears to be about 1.5 m tall and has 20 DOF.  They have a staff of four professors and about 30 students working on it. 

   

80. The Korea Maritime University of Pusan, Korea has a major bipedal android project under way. It looks quite similar to some of the Japanese projects such as the Tohoku University project (see #20 above).  Here is the link - in Korean or English.

korean_3rdbiped.jpg (14358 bytes)      

81. Here is the first Iranian android.  It is called Firatelloid (First Iranian Intelligent Humanoid). They have some movies on their multi-media page. The principal developers are Mohamad Shayganfar and Benjamin Fonooni from the Azad  University of Arak. (Arak, Iran).  

    firatelloid.jpg (70199 bytes)      Firatelloid.

82. Here is the "Headless Horseman" of the Castrol Motorcycle company of Pangbourne, UK.  The robot was actually built by Stahle Gmbh of Neuhaussen, Germany.

Headless_Castrol.jpg (26154 bytes)     

This robot has two arms and two legs and is mounted on the motorcycle.

83. The Humanoid Robotics Laboratory in Linz, Austria has built a Barbot - an anthropomorphic robot which buys beer at the bar and DRINKS it!  This is the first humanoid I have seen which eats or drinks anything.  They are taking suggestions on how to convert the beer into power to run the robot. It is 1.7m tall and weighs and 30 Kg. Barbot has 7 DOF and can be booked for your party or event.  

     barbot.jpg (34626 bytes)    Barbot - Linz, Austria

84. The Amorphic Robot Works of Munich Germany has built a moving human skeleton which they call Skelli. It is the size of a normal adult and has 34 DOF including 16 in its face. An advanced telemetry suit will allow a participant to teach the machine behaviors. Designed to reflect commonality with humankind, some of the expressions this humanoid machine will manifest are fear, anger, joy, sorrow, surprise and impatience.

skelli_wchico.jpg (32860 bytes)  Skelli with Chico MacMurtrie

skelli_shoulder.jpg (36874 bytes)  Shoulder detail of Skelli.

85. Waseda University Humanoid project has another project called " Wendy ".  "Wendy" is similar to Halady.  It has a total of 52 DOF.  Beware that their text is in white, so it won't print out correctly - at least on a color printer.  Here is a picture of Wendy.

   wendy.jpg (47007 bytes)      Image is 42K.

86. Now Waseda University has another project called iSHA. This humanoid has 26 DOF which are mostly driven by electric motors. It can operate autonomously for 2 hours. WOW! Very impressive!

isha.jpg (215256 bytes)     iSHA.

 

87. Waseda has another project (which I finally found) called Robita. It is designed to conduct conversions with people.  They have several movies on Yosuke Matsusaka's page. This project has been active since June 1999.

robita_waseda.jpg (37073 bytes)  Robita

 

88. Waseda University also has a project called Wamoeba.  Its being built at the Sugano laboratory. It seems there have been 3 versions since 1995. The picture below is the latest - called Wamoeba 2Ri. 

   wamoeba2ri.jpg (11379 bytes)   Wamoeba - 2Ri

89.  A Humanoid Robot System is being developed at the Intelligent Robotics Research Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology in Seoul, Korea. The goal is to build a human-like autonomous robot.  The name of this project is CENTAUR - after the half-human half-horse from Greek mythology - and it has 4 legs. Current staff is 14. The picture below is the human upper body part.  They also have a vision eye coordination project here(* Fixed links 09/11/03 *)

centaur.jpg (57614 bytes)  centaur2.jpg (30431 bytes)

90. The Articifial Intelligence and Media Lab of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology now have two projects under developement. They have the AIM project and the AIMET project.  They are being developed  on the Taejon Campus in Taejon, Korea. They have some video clips to look at too.  

 

AMI-B.jpg (73324 bytes)    amiet1.jpg (23243 bytes)

     AIM                AIMET (left), AIM (center)

91. The University of Florida has a humanoid project at their Machine Intelligence Laboratory, Gainsville, Florida.  Their humanoid is called Pneuman. Professors included are: Antonio Arroyo, Michael Nechyba, Eric Schwartz. There are also many students working on the project. The humanoid is 59 inches tall, weighs 102 lbs and has 25 DOF. Here is another article I found.

     pneuman.jpg (14134 bytes)    Pneuman.

92. Anybots of Mountain View, California has a full scale humanoid project under way.  It appears that each leg has 7 DOF.  They have a video of their legs balancing vertically.  They also have prototypes of hands. 

     anybots.jpg (166245 bytes)    

93. The University of Karlsruhe in Germany has a big project called SFB 588, a humanoid robot.  Their robot doesn't have legs yet but it appears to have very capable hands with about 15 DOF for each hand.  Thus the overall number would be between 40 & 50 DOF. 

      SFB588.gif (35280 bytes)

  SFB588_hand.gif (69084 bytes)   Nice hands.

94. The Institute of Measurement Science at the Bundeswehr University of Munich (Germany) has a big project called Hermes. My appologies to them for not listing them long ago. This project has been going since 1996. The principal investigator is Rainer Bischoff and there are 7 other staff members and about 35 past staff and students who have worked on the project. They have made good progress.

hermes.gif (51508 bytes)   hermes_body.gif (43553 bytes)  

95. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Pittsburg started a major project called the Nursebot, with a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation.  This appears to be huge because they have as many as 50 people working on various parts of it. They seem to have two prototypes: Pearl and Florence. Its about 4 feet tall.

     nursebot.jpg (46354 bytes)   50 KB

96. Tamim Asfour, a grad student at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany), is part of a major project which is building a humanoid called ARMAR. Number of staff: unknown to me.

     armar.jpg (127355 bytes)    

    ARMAR - 124K

97. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst has a humanoid project at the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics. Prof. Roderic Grupen is the director.  They have four professors on the project and about 20 students.  They have built the upper half of a humanoid - similar to MIT & Vanderbilt. Their humanoid has about 29 DOF, including 2 functional arms (7 DOF each)  and two 3 fingered hands (4 DOF each).

     UMass_humanoid.jpeg (194041 bytes)    UMass humanoid.

98. Vanderbilt University School of Engineering has a humanoid robot called ISAC under development.   This project has four professors and 23 students. The project has been under way for about 5 years.Their current goal is to enable ISAC to learn from his own experiences and to interact with people in a natural way. Ultimately, ISAC will be an in-home care- giver for the elderly or infirm.  The Director of the Center for Intelligent Systems is Prof. Kawamura. Their staff includes Profs. Peters, Wilkes, Biswas, and Gaines.

          ISAC4.JPG (46768 bytes) 46KB image

99. The ProtoAndroid project (Austin, Texas) This project is financed by the Faustex Systems Corporation, whose founder and president is David Santos. This project has been under development since at least 1992.  It is  6' 4"  tall and weighs about 300 pounds. Size of staff is about 5. They have also built the H2 martial arts robot shown below. 

          h2robot.jpg (119199 bytes)    116K.

100. Thailand now has its first android project. King Mongkut's University of Technology at Thonburi is building an android too.

Thailand.gif (21086 bytes)  

 

101. Started in 1996, Aandroyds Inc offers a line of 2, 4, and 6 legged machines for sale. The machines are designed for home, office, and industry, with custom lab and space models available. Find them at Aandroyds.com. 102. Dr. Jennifer Best at UCLA is leading a new android development project . Their main web link may not work because their server is down. You might try this one. With a major school like UCLA backing this project, I'm sure we can expect great things.
103. Kumoh National University of Technology in Seoul, Korea has a project which is building a miniature humanoid robot. It is being built by the mechatronics group which is part of the mechanical engineering department. They claim that their humanoid robot can walk up and down stairs. WOW! Here are a couple of papers I found.

[1] Y. W. Sung, and S. Y. Yi, "A miniature humanoid robot that can walk up and down stairs", Proc. of International Symposium on Robotics'2001, Seoul, Korea, 2001

[2] Y. W. Sung, and S. Y. Yi, "The Development of a Miniature Humanoid Robot System", Proc. of International Symposium on Robotics and Automation 2000, Monterrey, Mexico, pp.133~138, 2000

104. Tsinghua University in Beijing, China has a bipedal humanoid robot project called THBIP-I.  This project is several years old.  Here is one news article.   Here are a few papers I found:

[1] “The Biped Humanoid Robot THBIP-I” Li Liu, Jinsong Wang, Ken Chen, Jiandong Zhao and Dongchao Yang (Tsinghua University, China)

[2] “Gait Planning of Humanoid Robot Based on Anticipant ZMP Tranck” Dongchao Yang, Li Liu, Jinsong Wang, Ken Chen (Tsinghua University, China)

[3] "A New Method of Gait Generation for A Biped Walking Robot" Kai Xu, Ken Chen, Jinsong Wang, Li Liu, Dongchao Yang, Jiandong Zhao
Institute of Manufacturing Engineering, Tsinghua University, China

105.  Intelligent Earth, a company located in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, has announced a new project to build a full sized walking and talking android. The announcement appeared at the end of this news article from the BBC.

    Doki  

106. The University of Freiburg in Freiburg, Germany started a Learning Humanoid Robots project in January of 2004.  The project, called Nimbro, is being directed by Sven Behnke and will involve about 12 people.  They will be building a humanoid which will be about 150 cm tall (5 feet) and will weigh about 38 Kg.  It will have 22 DOF.  They would like to compete in the Robocup Humanoid Soccer tournament.

        Contact Information

Chris Willis
Android World Inc., President
3311 Santa Monica Dr.
Denton, TX., 76205, USA    
 
General Information: crwillis@androidworld.com