VIDEO: Humanoid unveils bipedal robot that walks 48 hours after assembly

UK-based AI and robotics company Humanoid has unveiled HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal, a humanoid robot that the company said sets a new benchmark for development speed and operational readiness.

Humanoid said it built HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal from initial design to working prototype in just five months. The company said that, compared with the industry average of 18 to 24 months, Alpha achieved stable walking only 48 hours after final assembly, representing a milestone that typically takes weeks or even months.

3D modeling and training expedite HMND 01 development

Humanoid said the secret lies in the company’s approach to both hardware and software. The team relied on ultra-precise 3D modeling to create prototypes that closely match simulation, minimizing the “sim-to-real” gap that often slows humanoid development.

Using NVIDIA's Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab, the Humanoid team trained more than 52.5 million seconds of reinforcement-learning locomotion data in simulation, equivalent to nearly 19 months of conventional training, in only two days. Humanoid said the robot took its first real-world steps after just 3.2 million seconds, with minimal randomization needed to handle external pushes of up to 350 Newtons.

“HMND 01 is designed to address real-world challenges across industrial and home environments,” said Artem Sokolov, Founder and CEO of Humanoid. “With manufacturing sectors facing labor shortages of up to 27%, leaving significant gaps in production, and millions of people performing physically demanding or repetitive tasks, robots can provide meaningful support. In domestic environments, they have the potential to assist elderly people or those with physical limitations, helping with object handling, coordination, and daily activities. Every day, over 16 billion hours are spent on unpaid domestic and care work worldwide - work that, if valued economically, would exceed 40% of GDP in some countries. By taking on these responsibilities, humanoid robots can free humans to focus on higher-value and safer work, improving their productivity and quality of life.”

HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal details

Standing 179 centimeters (5’10’’) tall with 29 degrees of freedom excluding end-effectors, Alpha combines upper-body strength with a bimanual payload capacity of 15 kilograms (33 lbs). Its modular end-effectors can be fitted with either 12-degree-of-freedom five-fingered hands or 1-degree-of-freedom parallel grippers, while its head features six RGB cameras, two depth sensors and a six-microphone array. The robot’s body is equipped with haptic sensors, force/torque sensors and joint torque feedback, all powered by Nvidia Jetson Orin AGX and Intel i9 processors. Its battery provides three hours of swappable power, which Humanoid said ensures extended operation during testing and development.

Humanoid said that Alpha Bipedal is designed for robust and repeatable performance across multiple applications, including industrial, household and service tasks. It can walk in straight and curved trajectories, turn in place, sidestep, squat, hop, run, manipulate objects with precision, recover from omnidirectional pushes and coordinate with other humanoid or wheeled robots. Beyond locomotion and manipulation, it can engage with humans via a head display, LEDs, speakers and audio sensing, while its VLM and VLA-based KinetIQ framework enables advanced reasoning and task execution.

Humanoid said its approach emphasizes modularity and versatility, allowing future upgrades to the robot’s upper body, end-effectors and even garments. The company said its platform is optimized for low total cost of ownership, fast training and adoption of AI policies and high payload-to-cost ratio.

HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal expands Humanoid’s robotics portfolio, following the wheeled Alpha platform, which was recently launched and has already completed its first commercial POCs, and extends the company’s reach from industrial and logistics tasks, including warehouse automation, picking and palletizing, to domestic support applications.