UCLA's open-source humanoid: walks at ~$400 in hardware
Where it stands: UCLA researchers have built an open-source humanoid robot that walks, tracks people and gets back up again, using inexpensive hardware and a smartphone as its computer, at a total cost of about $400. Watch for the design release and for how much of the walking and self-righting it does without a human steering it.
Latest
- 2026-10-18 (~8:45 PM ET, MSN syndication): UCLA researchers built an open-source humanoid robot that walks, tracks people, and gets back up using inexpensive hardware and a smartphone as its compute, at a total cost of $400 — the window's delta being the full-cost figure against earlier coverage naming only the phone component's price. First low-cost research-humanoid datapoint on the record. Syndication grade: no paper, video, bill of materials, or autonomy-versus-teleop breakdown in the reporting. Watch: the design/paper release and what "open-source" covers, the walking and self-righting claims' autonomy share, and the smartphone-as-brain architecture's limits.