Darwin-OP
DARwIn-OP (Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence - Open Platform) is a miniature bipedal humanoid robot developed by ROBOTIS of South Korea in collaboration with Virginia Tech, Purdue University, and the University of Pennsylvania, supported by a $1.2 million NSF grant. Standing 45.5 cm tall and weighing 2.8 kg with 20 degrees of freedom controlled by DYNAMIXEL MX-28 servos, it runs on a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor. DARwIn-OP was groundbreaking as a fully open-source research and education platform, with all hardware designs and software freely available.
Primary use case: Research
Height
45.5 cm
Weight
2.9 kg
DOF
20
Specifications
Physical
Height
45.5 cm
Weight
2.9 kg
Degrees of Freedom
20
Locomotion
Bipedal
Commercial
Availability
Discontinued
Primary Use Case
Research
Related news
UCLA Open-Sources PhoneBot: One Android Phone Replaces Five Humanoid Robot Systems
UCLA's RoMeLa lab has open-sourced PhoneBot, a bipedal humanoid research platform priced at roughly $400 (excluding phone) that uses a commodity Android phone as its vision sensor, IMU, processor, wireless radio, touchscreen, and speaker simultaneously. The paper, led by Ruochen Hou with Professors Dennis Hong, also introduces a 'sagittal mirroring' training technique that eliminates left-right gait asymmetry from manufacturing tolerances with a 98.8% reduction in joint-angle symmetry error. The release aims to make humanoid locomotion research accessible to programs priced out of the $3,500–$13,800 alternatives.
Video Friday: Spot Plays to Show Its Whole Body Manipulation
Evan Ackerman's Video Friday roundup leads with a Robotics and AI Institute demonstration of Spot's whole-body manipulation, noting that direct torso involvement is hard to discern. It also collects videos of ETH Zurich humanoid locomotion research, Reachy Mini racing Microduck, monkeyBot 2.0 pipe climbing, ANYmal X, a LimX Dynamics tennis robot, DEEPRobotics machines, MonoRace drone racing, and the amphibious SAWbot; no funding is discussed.
South Korea Plans to Deploy 1,700 AI Robots Across Public Sector in 2027
South Korea plans to distribute about 1,700 AI robots to public-sector organizations in 2027, creating early customers and real-world test sites for domestic robotics companies. MOTIE is holding an Oct. 28-29 event in Seoul for agency-company meetings and is preparing deployment guidelines, while operating data from planned uses in research, security, policing, and agriculture will be shared with manufacturers.