HUBO - Korean Walking Humanoid Robot

HUBO (휴보 KHR-3) is a walking humanoid robot, head mounted on a life-size walking bipedal frame, developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(KAIST) and released on January 6, 2005. Hubo is short form for "humanoid robot."

Hubo has voice recognition and synthesis faculties, as well as sophisticated vision in which its two eyes move independently of one another.

Korea's history in robotics engineering is relatively short. KAIST only began research in 2000, led by professor Oh Jun-ho. The first prototype, KHR-0, consisting of two legs without an upper body was built by 2001. KHR-1 was developed without a head or hands released in 2003, followed by a complete humanoid KHR-2 in 2004.[1]

On January 25, 2005, Gizmag reported on KAIST's unveiling of the KHR-3 HUBO.[2]

The KHR-3's physical specifications, such as height, weight, and the number of DOFs (degrees of freedom), were similar to Honda's ASIMO, which served as the benchmark for the project. In terms of AI and movements, HUBO fell short of the "next-gen ASIMO," which was unveiled three months later. While HUBO could only walk at 1.25 km/h, the ASIMO could walk at 2.5 km/h and also run at 3 km/h. The ASIMO was also capable of walking up and down stairs, which was a temporary shortcoming for HUBO needing further development. The unnerved KAIST researchers noted, however, that HUBO could play kai-bai-bo (the Korean version of rock-paper-scissors), which was impossible for ASIMO since its fingers could not move independently of each other.[1]

On November of '05, KAIST, Korea and Dallas, Texas based Hanson Robotics, Inc (HRI) released the world's first android head mounted on a life-size walking bi-pedal frame at the APEC Summit in Seoul, Korea. The walking frame was based on the KHR-3 HUBO, while the head was an exact recreation of the late physicist, Albert Einstein. The android was able to speak and cover a wide range of natural facial expressions, built upon prior HRI development on the Philip K. Dick android, which made its official debut at the Wired MagazineNextFest 05' in Chicago, Illinois.

The humanoid prototype was officially dubbed "Albert Einstein Hubo".

Jaemi HUBO was developed from 2008 to 2009. The complete humanoid robot was given a slimmer design with an aluminum endoskeleton and a polycarbonate frame, resulting in a slightly taller height but a 20% lighter weight than its predecessors. Its movements were more realistic since the arms made quicker and more natural motions, and the legs could stretch to imitate human walking, which also consumes less energy than the traditional humanoid walking based on the Zero Moment Point trajectory. Its walking speed was improved to 1.4 km/h, and it also acquired the ability to run at 3.6 km/h (which is still much slower than the new ASIMO's 6 km/h by comparison).[1]

	KHR-0 (2001)	KHR-1 (2002)	KHR-2 (2004)	HUBO (KHR-3) (2005)	Albert HUBO (2005)	HUBO 2 (KHR-4) (2008)
Weight	29 kg	48 kg	56 kg	56 kg	57 kg	45 kg[3]
Height	110 cm	120 cm	120 cm	125 cm	137 cm	125 cm
Walking speed	-	1.0 km/h	1.2 km/h	1.25 km/h	1.25 km/h	1.5 km/h
Continuous operating time	-	-	-	60 minutes	60 minutes	120 minutes
Degrees of Freedom	12	21	41	41	66	40