Humanoid robotics
AI milestones in humanoid robotics, part of robotics and autonomy.
13 milestones
LOVOT Companion Robot Unveiled by Groove X
In December 2018, Groove X, a Japanese robotics company founded by Kaname Hayashi, unveiled LOVOT, a companion robot designed to elicit emotional attachment rather than perform practical tasks, equipped with more than 50 sensors, a thermal camera array, and a neural-processing unit to recognise and respond to human behaviour.
SoftBank Robotics and Aldebaran Unveil Pepper, a Humanoid Robot with Emotion Recognition
In June 2014, SoftBank Robotics and its subsidiary Aldebaran Robotics unveiled Pepper, a 1.2-metre humanoid robot equipped with an emotion-recognition system capable of detecting human facial expressions, voice tone, and body language, intended for retail and customer-service deployment.
Schaft Inc Robot Wins DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials 2013
In December 2013, Schaft Inc, a Japanese robotics company acquired by Google in October 2013, won the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials at Homestead Miami Speedway, Florida, scoring 27 out of 32 points across eight disaster-response tasks and finishing ahead of 15 other teams.
Honda Unveils ASIMO Version with Running Capability
In December 2004, Honda demonstrated an updated version of its ASIMO humanoid robot capable of running at 3 km/h, a significant advance over prior versions that could only walk. The update also improved ASIMO's ability to navigate dynamically changing environments.
iCub Humanoid Robot Platform
The iCub humanoid robot was developed from 2004 onward by the RobotCub Consortium, coordinated by the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), as an open-hardware child-sized platform for research into embodied cognition, motor learning, and human–robot interaction.
KHR-1 Humanoid Robot Platform
Researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Kawada Industries presented KHR-1 in 2004, a full-body humanoid robot platform with 30 degrees of freedom designed as a shared research base for bipedal locomotion and whole-body motion studies.
Fujitsu Laboratories Develops Dynamically Reconfigurable Neural Network for Humanoid Robot Motor Learning
In March 2003, Fujitsu Laboratories announced a dynamically reconfigurable neural network system enabling humanoid robots to learn motor coordination from experience, reducing learning time that previously required days or months and substantially cutting the volume of motion-control software needed.
Kismet: Sociable Robot Developed by Cynthia Breazeal at MIT
Around 2000, Cynthia Breazeal at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory completed Kismet, a robotic head capable of perceiving and expressing emotion through coordinated facial features, pioneering research into socially intelligent robots able to engage in natural affective interaction with humans.
Sony AIBO Robot Dog Released
In May 1999, Sony Corporation released AIBO (Artificial Intelligence roBOt), model ERS-110, a consumer entertainment robot in the form of a dog. The robot used onboard processing and sensors to exhibit autonomous behaviour and express simulated emotional states, marking one of the first mass-market deployments of embodied AI behaviour.
Intelligent Room and Affective Computing Agents at MIT AI Laboratory
In 1998, researchers at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, including Rodney Brooks and Cynthia Breazeal, developed the Intelligent Room project alongside work on emotionally expressive robotic agents, combining layered behaviour-based architectures with computer vision to enable a physical space to perceive and respond to human occupants.
MIT Cog Project: Humanoid Robotics for Cognitive Research
Around 1993, Rodney Brooks and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory initiated the Cog project, constructing an upper-torso humanoid robot intended to investigate whether human-like cognitive capacities could emerge from embodied interaction with a physical environment.
WABOT-2 Humanoid Robot Demonstrated at Waseda University
In 1984, researchers at Waseda University in Japan completed WABOT-2, a humanoid robot capable of reading printed musical scores, communicating with a human performer via speech, and playing an electronic organ using its fingers and foot pedals at a level comparable to an average adult pianist.
WABOT-1 Completed at Waseda University
In 1973, researchers at Waseda University in Japan completed WABOT-1, a full-scale anthropomorphic robot integrating limb control, machine vision, and Japanese-language conversation. It was among the earliest humanoid robots to combine locomotion, manipulation, and speech interaction in a single system.