RankedHumanoid robot news
Launches, deployments, prices, funding and research, each checked against the company's own announcement or the journal paper. We say who is making each claim and label reports and rumours as such. Updated monthly.
Business · 15 Oct 2026Agility picks Nyobolt fast-charging battery to keep Digit 5 working 20 hours a dayThe companies say the pack runs for 90 minutes and recharges in nine, with early access to the robot expected in the first half of 2027.
Launch · 12 Oct 2026Menlo Research publishes an Apache-licensed Python SDK for its Asimov 1 humanoidThe SDK drives walking, joints, camera and audio over a local or internet link, but sits below the robot's safety layer and has no emergency stop.
News · 9 Oct 2026ARC stages Singapore's first full-size humanoid fight night with piloted robotsMartial artists in motion-capture suits controlled Unitree G1 and EngineAI T800 robots in a survival-mode bout on 7 October.
Research · 8 Oct 2026VioLA preprint trains a humanoid policy mostly on human motion dataThe authors report that a policy predicting latent motion codes followed locomotion instructions on a real robot without task-specific fine-tuning.
Business · 6 Oct 2026AgiBot cites IDC data showing it shipped most humanoids in first half of 2026The Shanghai maker says it shipped more than 8,600 humanoids in the half and has now built 20,000 robots in total.
Business · 6 Oct 2026Agility tells investors Digit 5 reaches existing partners in first half of 2027An investor presentation filed with US regulators cites more than $300m in committed orders, covering 1,000 Digit 5 humanoids on three-year service contracts.
Business · 6 Oct 2026Boston Dynamics names former Amazon AI chief Rohit Prasad as chief executiveThe Atlas and Spot maker says Prasad, who led Alexa and the Nova model family at Amazon, takes over on 7 October.
Launch · 6 Oct 2026Renesas launches first low-voltage GaN transistors, naming humanoid robotics as a targetThe four 100V devices are aimed at AI data centres and robotics; the company claims 40 to 70 per cent lower switching losses.
Funding · 5 Oct 2026Japanese care-home operator Charm Care invests ¥300m in humanoid maker donut roboticsThe two companies are testing donut robotics' cinnamon humanoid in a care home and plan to extend it to care-related tasks such as nurse calls.
Launch · 3 Oct 2026RoboParty shows RP1 open-source humanoid at IROS, plans releases in Q4The Pittsburgh start-up says the full-size biped has joints with up to 160 N·m of peak torque; price, height and weight have not been disclosed.
Launch · 2 Oct 2026Galbot lists ET1 humanoid in three versions from 79,000 yuanThe 1.25 m biped is aimed at performances and storefronts; the company's page gives specifications, while prices come from press reports.
Business · 1 Oct 2026Agility and FORT Robotics sign safety agreement for Digit 5The memorandum of understanding widens a supplier relationship into joint work on an offboard safety link between the humanoid and factory systems.
Launch · 1 Oct 2026Boston Dynamics gives Atlas a four-finger, 13-degree-of-freedom handThe company says the new hand drops the little finger and is designed for tool use, simulation training and volume manufacture.
Business · 1 Oct 2026Faraday Future targets a US robot factory by end-2026 and first units in February 2027The company's plan covers a humanoid and a quadruped, with US sourcing rising in phases to Q4 2028. All figures are company projections.
Funding · 30 Sept 2026Agility files amended merger registration as Digit maker heads for listingAn S-4/A filed on 30 September covers the planned combination with Churchill Capital Corp XI; trade press reports the filing shows $1.8m of 2025 sales.
Business · 30 Sept 2026Figure retires its F.02 humanoid fleet by melting units at a Finnish foundryThe company says it decommissioned its second-generation robots at a steel foundry in Imatra, protecting proprietary hardware, and will sell limited-edition artefacts made from the metal.
Business · 30 Sept 2026Singapore opens humanoid robotics centre for police, prison and civil defence workThe Home Team Science and Technology Agency aims to have a first humanoid working alongside officers in a real operational setting by 2028.
Launch · 29 Sept 2026Astribot brings T1 humanoid to North America at IROS, from $18,000The Shenzhen company says US customers can order the cable-driven, 23-degree-of-freedom robot now, with delivery available.
Launch · 29 Sept 2026Dyna shows Taku semi-humanoid running an hour-long laundry workflowThe start-up's technical report describes a wheeled robot completing about 79 steps without intervention; it says customer-site deployment is the next milestone.
Deployment · 21 Sept 2026Boston Dynamics opens Atlas training centre at Hyundai's Georgia plantThe new application centre at Hyundai's Metaplant America is training Atlas robots on logistics and parts-sequencing tasks, the companies say.
Launch · 15 Sept 2026Agility unveils Digit 5, its first humanoid built for safety near peopleAgility says Digit 5 carries 40% more payload, charges in nine minutes and adds a new safety system, with early customer access due in 2027.
Other robot news
Robot dogs, drones, air taxis, cobots and home robots.
Business · 19 Oct 2026Nine Chinese ministries call for robots in household services, logistics and retailNew guidance led by the Ministry of Commerce lists robots among smart products to expand and backs embodied intelligence in home services and logistics.
Launch · 14 Oct 2026DJI Dock 4 swaps drone batteries in 25 seconds and arrives with the Matrice 5TDDJI's new drone-in-a-box station changes batteries automatically, and the company says the paired Matrice 5TD can fly for up to 59 minutes.
Business · 9 Oct 2026AGIBOT opens a Hong Kong office as base for R&D and university labsThe company says a two-phase plan starts with an R&D headquarters and joint laboratories, followed by tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars in investment.
Deployment · 9 Oct 2026Zipline starts early-access drone delivery in Round Rock, TexasThe company limits its 'First Flight' programme to the first 5,000 residents and says it has passed 3 million deliveries.
Research · 9 Oct 2026Robotera says its VPP2 model tops the RoboDojo manipulation benchmarkThe Beijing company reports a 32.26% average success rate and has released code and checkpoints; the result is self-reported.
Launch · 8 Oct 2026Aether AI introduces CRIS-0, a robot system that checks each step of a taskThe start-up says its causality-driven agent and world model let robots spot disturbances and return to the stage that went wrong.
Research · 8 Oct 2026ETH Zurich preprint shows an off-the-shelf robot hand crawling on its fingersResearchers add an 80 g onboard module to a commercial hand and train it to crawl, steer, right itself and press keys.
Launch · 8 Oct 2026DJI Enterprise sets a 14 October launch for an unnamed productA teaser page says 'Always There, Always Ready'; leaks point to a battery-swapping dock, which DJI has not confirmed.
Funding · 7 Oct 2026Mecka raises $60 million Series B to scale human-demonstration data for robotsSequoia leads the round, with Nvidia, M12, Qualcomm Ventures and Samsung joining; the company says its run-rate revenue passed $100 million in June.
Research · 7 Oct 2026Butterfly-inspired flapping robot gains lift after reinforcement-learning wing designAuthors of an npj Robotics paper report optimised wing shapes raised lift by 339% and thrust by 46% on a 48 g robot.
Deployment · 7 Oct 2026Sereact dual-arm robots start sorting Zalando fashion returns at two CEVA sitesThe company says the systems, delivered as a service, handle returned items in Germany and Poland without per-item training.
Deployment · 6 Oct 2026Coco Robotics brings pavement delivery robots to the UK with DeliverooThe company says its robots start in London's Canary Wharf this month, followed by four more English towns and cities.
Research · 6 Oct 2026One learned policy lets a 270 g quadruped walk upright or upside down, preprint saysLegs that rotate through a full circle let the MiNI-Q robot walk on either side of its body and recover after being thrown.
Deployment · 5 Oct 2026Wing adds Denver and Seattle to its Walmart drone delivery expansionThe delivery-drone operator says its Walmart network now covers nearly 20 US metros and more than 270 stores once the planned rollout is complete.
Research · 5 Oct 2026Fuzzy decision network helps a robot arm pick single items from tangled fabric pilesAuthors of a Frontiers in Robotics and AI paper report a 93.3% grasp success rate on randomly stacked fabric.
Launch · 1 Oct 2026ANYbotics launches Shift software to run inspection robot fleetsThe Zurich company says the platform links plant mapping, fleet scheduling, inspection analytics and maintenance systems for energy, metals, mining and chemicals sites.
Research · 1 Oct 2026Wearable thruster robot steers scuba divers away from underwater structures, preprint saysAn arXiv paper describes a backpack-style device that uses gentle thrust as a physical cue to keep divers at a set distance from reefs or equipment.
Research · 30 Sept 2026Air-dropped robot spins down to water, then sails itself, study reportsA Science Robotics paper describes ALBATROSS, a sensor platform that autorotates like a seed after release from a drone and then navigates as an autonomous sailboat.
Research · 30 Sept 2026People judge robots approaching from behind as faster, IEEE study findsJapanese researchers report a perceptual bias that could change how mobile robots plan their paths around pedestrians, according to a paper in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.
Research · 28 Sept 2026Microrobot navigation policies trained in under 10 minutes, study reportsA Nature Machine Intelligence paper describes a vectorised simulator and reward design that cut reinforcement-learning training for microrobot navigation from hours to minutes.
Launch · 28 Sept 2026Sharpa unveils D01 robot, 21-DoF W02 hand and AE01 haptic glove at IROSSharpa launched a tactile-sensing manipulation robot, a smaller dexterous hand and a teleoperation data glove at IROS 2026 in Pittsburgh.
Deployment · 24 Sept 2026AgiBot deploys more than 300 robots across Chimelong theme parkAgiBot and Chimelong say the rollout, marking AgiBot's 20,000th robot built, covers entertainment, guiding, retail and hotel roles at the Zhuhai resort.
Business · 24 Sept 2026Archer clears US antitrust waiting period for purchase of Boeing's WiskArcher Aviation says the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period has expired for its acquisition of Wisk Aero, Insitu and SkyGrid, with closing expected by the end of 2026.
Business · 24 Sept 2026Five million industrial robots now operate worldwide, IFR saysThe International Federation of Robotics' World Robotics 2026 report counts a record operational stock, with China accounting for most new installations in 2025.
Business · 23 Sept 2026Qualcomm agrees to buy PickNik, steward of open-source MoveItQualcomm says MoveIt will stay open-source and hardware-agnostic while gaining tighter integration with its Dragonwing robotics platforms and Arduino boards.
Launch · 22 Sept 2026Epson launches AX6, its first collaborative robot armThe six-axis AX6 carries IP54 and ISO 5 cleanroom ratings; Epson has not published payload, reach or price in its announcement.
Funding · 17 Sept 2026Robot-chip maker D-Robotics raises $400m Series CThe Sunrise chipmaker, whose customers include UBTech, Fourier and Booster Robotics, says it has shipped more than 8 million chips.
Business · 17 Sept 2026Figure says its Helix 2.5 model works in 30 unseen homes with no retrainingFigure AI reports zero-shot task success across 30 Bay Area homes rose from 9% to 56% after larger-scale pretraining on its robot data.
Research · 16 Sept 2026RAI Institute's AthenaZero throws, catches and bats a baseball at speedA low-inertia bimanual robot matches human-arm mass to perform fast, contact-rich manipulation, the authors report in Science Robotics.
Research · 4 Sept 2026Physics-based filter helps robot learning generalise, npj Robotics paper reportsBeihang University researchers add a physics-filtered correction to learned controllers and report gains on a quadruped and on drones in wind.
Funding · 3 Sept 2026Figure signs deal with Nscale for up to 100,000 GPUs to train its robotsFigure AI and cloud provider Nscale plan a Texas data-centre deployment on Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform, with Nscale also investing in Figure.