humanoid

A short Unitree promo for its G1 humanoid robot, priced from $16K, showing agile motion, dexterous hands and imitation and reinforcement learning.

Boston Dynamics shows its Atlas humanoid robots running a parkour course with jumps, balance beams and vaults, demonstrating whole-body athletic control.

Short clip of Honda's ASIMO humanoid robot falling down stairs during a live demonstration.

Tesla's short promotional video of Optimus Gen 2, its humanoid robot, with new actuators and sensors, faster hands, faster walking and lower weight.

CGTN coverage of the 2026 Spring Festival Gala, in which humanoid robots perform synchronized martial arts routines alongside children.

An IEEE Spectrum compilation of humanoid robots falling over during the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals.

Boston Dynamics shows the electric Atlas autonomously moving engine covers between containers and a sequencing dolly. It uses an ML vision model and grasping policy with no teleoperation or prescribed motions.

A short status-update demo from Figure showing its humanoid robot using OpenAI-powered speech-to-speech reasoning to converse and perform tasks.

A one-minute Tesla clip showing multiple Tesla-built Optimus bots walking and learning about the real world.

A short Tesla clip showing the Optimus humanoid robot sorting objects autonomously and doing yoga-style stretches. Tesla says its neural network is trained end to end, from video in to controls out.

A short Boston Dynamics clip of the Atlas humanoid robot doing parkour, jumping over a log and leaping up steps using whole-body control and computer vision to locate markers.

Boston Dynamics shows its humanoid robot Atlas picking up and manipulating objects, and altering the obstacle course to reach its goal. The clip demonstrates locomotion, sensing and athletic manipulation.

Robin Deits presents the JuliaRobotics organization and shows how Julia is used to visualize, simulate and control a humanoid robot. The talk touches on real-time performance and composability across packages.

Boston Dynamics shows its Atlas humanoid robot performing a gymnastics and parkour routine, using optimization-generated motions and a model predictive controller.

Boston Dynamics unveils a new, smaller Atlas humanoid robot that is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. It balances with body sensors and uses lidar and stereo vision to navigate and manipulate objects.

Tesla's full AI Day 2022 presentation, covering the Tesla Bot hardware and software, Full Self-Driving planning and perception, the occupancy network, data labeling, simulation and Dojo training infrastructure.

Guardian News clip of Elon Musk announcing the 'Tesla Bot' at AI Day 2021, with a person dancing in a bodysuit on stage in place of a prototype.

Tesla's 2021 AI Day presentation covering vision, planning and control, auto-labeling, simulation, the Dojo training hardware and the Tesla Bot announcement, followed by a Q&A.

CGP Grey's video "Humans Need Not Apply" argues that automation will make a large part of the workforce economically obsolete, much as engines did for horses. It surveys robots and software replacing both physical and mental labor.

Real Engineering explains how Zipline built a drone delivery network for medical supplies in Rwanda. It covers the fixed-wing drones, catapult launch, parachute drop and the logistics behind the service.

Mark Rober visits Zipline and looks at its autonomous delivery drones, including medical and blood deliveries in Rwanda. He demonstrates how the drones' propeller design and cable-lowered delivery pod make them quiet and precise.

NASA JPL engineers explain the final minutes of the Curiosity rover's entry, descent and landing on Mars, which combined aerobraking, a parachute and a skycrane. It lays out the tight sequence of events that all had to work automatically.

Slaughterbots is a fictional short film, backed by Stuart Russell, depicting swarms of cheap autonomous drones that use facial recognition to assassinate targets. It was made to argue for banning autonomous weapons.

Wendover Productions explains why drone delivery has not become the future once promised. It covers no-fly zones, costs and the difficulty of the final drop-off.

Slaughterbots is a short sci-fi film in which swarms of cheap autonomous drones are programmed to kill targets by profile. It was made as arms-control advocacy against autonomous weapons.

Veritasium visits the Micromouse competition, where small autonomous robots race to solve mazes at extreme speed. It covers the competition's technical history, including fans and ground effect enabling very high-g turns.

Festo's promo video of SmartBird, an ultralight bionic flying model inspired by the herring gull that flaps and twists its wings to fly. It shows the robot in flight.

The first installment of a hobbyist's video diary documenting his build of a giant walking spider-like vehicle. The footage is casual and self-shot, following the early stages of the project.

NASA's animated explanation of the Curiosity rover's Mars landing, which relied on a complex automated sequence taking about seven minutes. It features NASA engineers discussing the risks before the 2012 landing.

Boston Dynamics' March 2008 video of BigDog, a four-legged robot, walking on ice and snow, climbing rubble and recovering from slips and kicks.

Novelist Daniel Suarez warns in a TED talk about autonomous robotic weapons and drones. He argues that taking the decision to kill out of human hands threatens democratic accountability and calls for a ban.

Stuff Made Here builds a handwriting robot and sends its output to a handwriting expert to see whether it can pass as forgery. It walks through the engineering trials and errors along the way.

Mark Rober shows an automatic bullseye dartboard that tracks a thrown dart with motion capture and moves in real time so it always hits the center. He spent over three years on the project.

A University of Tokyo lab demonstrates a book scanner that flips pages automatically and scans over 250 pages per minute. It uses real-time 3D recognition of the flipped pages and then restores each one to a flat image.

Johns Hopkins APL shows Les Baugh, a bilateral shoulder-level amputee, controlling two Modular Prosthetic Limbs by thought after a short training period. Nerves rerouted to his chest drive the arms.

This Place argues that the uncanny valley is a flawed concept, since 'human likeness' is too broad and the supporting evidence is cherry-picked. It proposes that the creepiness really comes from how animated characters and robots move.

A Wendover Productions documentary-style video on how Zipline delivers blood and medical supplies by drone in Rwanda. It covers the catapult launch, parachute drop and the logistics behind it.

A short Boston Dynamics clip of the Sand Flea, an 11-pound RC-car-style robot that can jump about 30 feet into the air. An onboard stabilization system keeps it oriented in flight and for landings.

Rob Miles explains for Computerphile why simple rule sets like Asimov's Three Laws cannot make robots and AI safe. Terms like harm and human are too ambiguous to specify precisely.

Brian Douglas introduces Braitenberg vehicles, simple robots whose sensors are wired directly to motors yet show surprisingly lifelike behavior. He draws on Valentino Braitenberg's book Vehicles.