Another day, another humanoid robot breakthrough. While the U.S. and China have a growing number of firms developing cutting-edge humanoid robots — Boston Dynamics, Figure, Unitree, and EngineAI among them — the technologically advanced nation of South Korea also has its fair share of roboticists tinkering away in the workshop.
Take WIRobotics, a firm founded four years ago by former engineers at Samsung’s robotics development team. This week, WIRobotics introduced ALLEX (from “All EXperience”), an impressive-looking humanoid robot that it claims brings “human-like whole-body force sensing and compliance across arms, fingers, and waist.” Note that the robot’s lower body has yet to be unveiled.
A video of ALLEX (top) shows a camera- and sensor-laden head, and astonishingly versatile hands with fast-moving fingers and human-like motion. Those rapid, spidery movements may send a shiver down your spine, but it’s an astonishing piece of technology that you can imagine one day being used in precision manufacturing or even prosthetics.
The team says the hands also sense forces like a human and yields compliantly to external loads, while the robot’s arms feature more than 10 times lower friction and rotational inertia than conventional collaborative robot arms, meaning it’ll feel more natural when someone physically interacts with it.
Indeed, WIRobotics’ focus is on creating humanlike interaction capabilities, with the team already claiming that ALLEX sets a new standard for humanoid robots, taking it beyond existing designs.
The company said it’s working with an AI startup to develop ALLEX’s AI smarts, while also collaborating with leading research institutions and companies both in South Korea and overseas.
“ALLEX goes beyond merely replicating human movement — it’s the first robot that truly experiences and responds to the real world,” Yong-Jae Kim, co-CEO and CTO of WIRobotics, said in a release.
He added that within the next five years the team hopes to launch a general-purpose humanoid robot that anyone can use in everyday life — presumably one with legs included.
