Humanoid robot learns to sprint and perform spin kicks using AI ...
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Key takeaways
- The most recent developments show a rapid expansion of both civilian and military humanoid‑robot programs. In early September, Chinese electric‑vehicle maker XPeng announced that its IRON humanoid robot has moved from prototype to full‑scale manufacturing, walking off the production line on its own and slated to begin commercial shipments next year. The robot boasts 82 degrees of freedom, can move at roughly two metres per second and is being built in an automated line that is more than 80 % robot‑controlled.
- At the same time, Reuters reported that China’s People’s Liberation Army is actively converting advanced research into battlefield tools. After a high‑profile World Humanoid Robot Games in August, PLA officials called for faster transfer of “cutting‑edge technologies” into military training, and procurement documents from 2025‑2026 show tenders for embodied humanoid perception and dexterous‑operation systems as well as a $300,000 budget for data‑collection platforms to teach robots to navigate terrain and conduct tasks such as identity checks, discipline inspections and security patrols.
- American researchers have also pushed the performance envelope. A new AI framework called BeyondMimic, demonstrated by UC Berkeley and Stanford, enabled humanoid robots to sprint, spin‑kick and combine dozens of human‑like motions without task‑specific retraining, a breakthrough published in Science Robotics in September.
- Market analysts are projecting massive growth. Goldman Sachs now expects 6.5 million humanoid robots to be shipped globally by 2035, while companies such as Tesla, Teradyne and Intuitive Surgical are scaling production lines for service‑oriented robots.
- Elsewhere, Korea’s national AI project unveiled an upgraded KAIROS humanoid at the Global Forum on Mechanical Engineering, showing enhanced walking, hand‑shaking and culturally inspired dance motions. These parallel civilian, research and defense advances illustrate how quickly humanoid robots are moving from laboratory demos to mass production and potential deployment on the battlefield.
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22 hours ago © 2026 Science X Network
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From cartwheels to backflips, motion-imitation framework teaches three robots dynamic movements
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17 hours ago Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), and Stanford University recently developed BeyondMimic, a new artificial intelligence framework that could broaden the movement repertoire of humanoid robots while reducing the need for motion-specific tuning or task-specific retraining. The framework, introduced in a paper published in Science Robotics, combines a training approach called reinforcement learning with a model that generates movement plans by refining noise within a compressed representation of motion.
The humanoid robot learned a large set of natural and agile humanlike motions and composed them to complete versatile tasks, guided by objectives that were not seen during training. Credit: Science Robotics (2026). DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.adx8924
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