Researchers at UC Berkeley just introduced a lightweight humanoid robot that can be built with 3D printed parts for less than $5,000.
The Berkeley Humanoid Lite stands about 80 centimeters (2 feet 6 inches) tall and weighs about 16 kg (35 lbs). The team built the robot almost entirely from plastic parts using regular desktop 3D printers. The researchers say their goal is to make robotics research more accessible in the age of embodied artificial intelligence.
“Despite significant interest and advancements in humanoid robotics, most existing commercially available hardware remains high-cost, closed-source, and non-transparent within the robotics community,” the researchers wrote. “This lack of accessibility and customization hinders growth of the field and the broader development of humanoid technologies.”
The robot can walk, manipulate objects, solve Rubik’s cubes, write using a marker, and perform real-world tasks with AI-driven reinforcement learning training. Its digital twin learns in simulation within NVIDIA’s Isaac Simulator before the learning is transferred to the hardware via a process called Sim2Real, short for Simulation to Reality.
The researchers equipped the robot with a modular cycloidal gearbox for stronger performance from plastic parts. Each joint includes a torque-dense actuator, tested for real-world tasks like walking and grasping.
The design files, software code, and training tools are all available for free. UC Berkeley encourages people to join their Discord and WeChat communities to collaborate and ask questions.
According to the research team, the lightweight humanoid passed durability tests, with performance comparable to robotic systems that cost six figures.