The Humanoid Robot Revolution Gets an Affordable Twist

EngineAI’s PM01 has been spotted confidently navigating the streets of Shenzhen, showcasing remarkably fluid walking capabilities that could disrupt the industry with its eye-popping price tag. Starting at just £10,500, this 138cm tall bipedal robot packs impressive specifications into its compact 40kg frame, including over 23 degrees of freedom, extraordinarily wide angular range of motion, and a peak torque density of 130N•M/KG.

What sets the PM01 apart is its remarkable versatility and open architecture. The robot features highly expandable hardware with USB and RJ45 interfaces for connecting external peripherals such as laser radar, ultrasonic sensors, and vision modules. On the software front, it’s compatible with both Windows and Ubuntu, while operating on Intel N97 X86 and NVIDIA Jetson Orin platforms. EngineAI has embraced the open-source philosophy, providing training code based on Isaac Sim and MuJoCo, potentially catalysing innovation across the humanoid robotics community.

With 5-DOF arms, 6-DOF legs, and an impressive 300° rotation angle at the waist, the PM01 demonstrates exceptional flexibility. The robot harnesses optical motion capture to collect human movement data, then employs neural networks and adversarial learning to rapidly evolve in simulated environments. At this price point, EngineAI appears poised to challenge both premium humanoid manufacturers like Tesla and Figure, as well as more budget-friendly competitors in the rapidly expanding bipedal robot market.