humanoid robot
In plain wordsA robot built roughly in human shape, with a head, torso, two arms and usually two legs, so that it can work in spaces and with tools designed for people.
A robotrobot, n.: A machine that senses its surroundings, decides what to do and physically acts, moving itself or handling objects, with some independence from a human operator. Factory arms, robot vacuums and self-driving cars are all robots. built on the human body plan — usually two legs, two arms ending in hands or grippers, a torso and a head, although some models roll on a wheeled base instead of walking. The case for the form is compatibility — homes, factories and tools are designed for human bodies, and human demonstrations and videos can in principle be retargeted to a similar body for imitation learningimitation learning, n.: Teaching an AI by showing it examples of an expert doing a task, so it learns to copy the behavior instead of discovering it through trial and error.. The engineering challenges are severe: bipedal balance and whole-body control (zero moment pointzero moment point, n.: The spot on the ground beneath a walking robot where the floor's push balances out; keeping it inside the area under the robot's feet stops the robot from tipping over., model predictive controlmodel predictive control, n.: A control method that repeatedly plans the best moves a few seconds ahead using a model of the machine, carries out only the first move, then plans again with fresh measurements., learned locomotionlocomotion, n.: How a robot moves itself from place to place: rolling on wheels, walking on legs, crawling, swimming or flying. policies), dexterous manipulationdexterous manipulation, n.: Skilled handling of objects with robot fingers, such as spinning a pen, turning a key or rotating a cube in one hand: the fine finger work people do without thinking. with multi-fingered hands, power density and battery life, cost, and safety around people. Control stacks increasingly pair low-level controllers trained in simulation with vision-language-action modelsvision-language-action model, n.: An AI model that looks through a robot's cameras, reads an instruction such as 'put the cup in the sink', and turns both straight into the robot's movements. for tasks. Between 2023 and 2026 dozens of companies in the United States, China and Europe, among them Tesla (Optimus), Figure, Agility Robotics, Apptronik, 1X, Unitree, UBTech and AgiBot, announced humanoids for factories, warehouses and homes, and Chinese makers shipped thousands of units. Independent evidence of economically useful autonomous work, as opposed to teleoperated or scripted demonstrations, remained limited as of October 2026, and forecasts of the market's size and timing vary widely.
The pilot put two humanoids on the tote line, each with a human operator on standby.
Origin
'Humanoid', from 'human' plus '-oid' (resembling), predates robotics. Early full-scale humanoid robots include Waseda University's WABOT-1 (1972, led by Ichiro Kato), Honda's P2 (1996) and ASIMO (2000), and Boston Dynamics' hydraulic Atlas (2013), replaced by an all-electric Atlas in April 2024. Commercial interest surged after Tesla announced Optimus in August 2021 and showed a prototype at its 2022 AI Day.
Usage note
An android is a humanoid made to look convincingly human, with skin and a face; most current humanoids are visibly mechanical, partly to avoid the uncanny valleyuncanny valley, n.: The eerie feeling people get from robots, dolls or computer-made faces that look almost, but not quite, human: liking grows with human likeness, then suddenly plunges.. Demonstration videos may be teleoperated or sped up, and reputable makers say so.
Related
- legged robotlegged robot, n.: A robot that walks on legs instead of rolling on wheels, such as a four-legged 'robot dog' or a two-legged humanoid, so it can climb stairs and cross rough ground.
- locomotionlocomotion, n.: How a robot moves itself from place to place: rolling on wheels, walking on legs, crawling, swimming or flying.
- dexterous manipulationdexterous manipulation, n.: Skilled handling of objects with robot fingers, such as spinning a pen, turning a key or rotating a cube in one hand: the fine finger work people do without thinking.
- vision-language-action modelvision-language-action model, n.: An AI model that looks through a robot's cameras, reads an instruction such as 'put the cup in the sink', and turns both straight into the robot's movements.
- physical AIphysical AI, n.: AI built to work in the physical world rather than on a screen: the intelligence inside robots, self-driving cars, drones and other machines that must sense real surroundings and move through them.
- uncanny valleyuncanny valley, n.: The eerie feeling people get from robots, dolls or computer-made faces that look almost, but not quite, human: liking grows with human likeness, then suddenly plunges.
- teleoperationteleoperation, n.: Controlling a robot or machine from a distance, with a person steering it in real time using a joystick, a matching 'puppet' arm, a VR headset or a screen.
Sources
- Hirai, K., Hirose, M., Haikawa, Y. & Takenaka, T. (1998). The development of Honda humanoid robot. Proc. IEEE ICRA 1998.
Mentioned in
Elon MuskElon Musk, prop. n.: A South African-born American entrepreneur who runs Tesla and SpaceX, co-founded OpenAI, founded the AI company xAI, and has long warned that AI could endanger humanity., physical AIphysical AI, n.: AI built to work in the physical world rather than on a screen: the intelligence inside robots, self-driving cars, drones and other machines that must sense real surroundings and move through them., robotrobot, n.: A machine that senses its surroundings, decides what to do and physically acts, moving itself or handling objects, with some independence from a human operator. Factory arms, robot vacuums and self-driving cars are all robots., degrees of freedomdegrees of freedom, n.: The number of independent ways something can move. A robot arm with six motorized joints has six; a free-floating object can slide three ways and turn three ways., Karel ČapekKarel Čapek, prop. n.: A Czech writer whose 1920 play about artificial workers who rise up against their makers gave the world the word 'robot'., legged robotlegged robot, n.: A robot that walks on legs instead of rolling on wheels, such as a four-legged 'robot dog' or a two-legged humanoid, so it can climb stairs and cross rough ground., locomotionlocomotion, n.: How a robot moves itself from place to place: rolling on wheels, walking on legs, crawling, swimming or flying., model predictive controlmodel predictive control, n.: A control method that repeatedly plans the best moves a few seconds ahead using a model of the machine, carries out only the first move, then plans again with fresh measurements., Rodney BrooksRodney Brooks, prop. n.: An Australian-American roboticist who argued that intelligence grows out of acting in the world rather than abstract reasoning, and who co-founded the company behind the Roomba vacuum., teleoperationteleoperation, n.: Controlling a robot or machine from a distance, with a person steering it in real time using a joystick, a matching 'puppet' arm, a VR headset or a screen., TeslaTesla, prop. n.: The American electric-car company led by Elon Musk, whose driver-assistance software, robotaxis and humanoid robot make it a major, and controversial, developer of AI., uncanny valleyuncanny valley, n.: The eerie feeling people get from robots, dolls or computer-made faces that look almost, but not quite, human: liking grows with human likeness, then suddenly plunges., dexterous manipulationdexterous manipulation, n.: Skilled handling of objects with robot fingers, such as spinning a pen, turning a key or rotating a cube in one hand: the fine finger work people do without thinking., Gemini RoboticsGemini Robotics, prop. n.: A family of AI models from Google DeepMind, built on its Gemini models, that let robots understand what they see and what people ask of them, and turn that understanding into physical actions., ICRAICRA, prop. n.: The largest yearly robotics conference, run by the engineering society IEEE, covering everything from robot arms and drones to self-driving cars., zero moment pointzero moment point, n.: The spot on the ground beneath a walking robot where the floor's push balances out; keeping it inside the area under the robot's feet stops the robot from tipping over.