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Robot With 1,000 Muscles Twitches Like Human While Dangling From Ceiling

While the Protoclone is a twitching, dangling robotic prototype right now, there's a lot of tech packed into its body. Protoclone's sensory system includes four depth cameras in its skull for vision, 70 inertial sensors to track joint positions, and 320 pressure sensors that provide force feedback. This system lets the robot react to visual input and learn by watching humans perform tasks.

As you can probably tell by the video, the current Protoclone prototype is still in an early developmental stage, requiring ceiling suspension for stability. Clone Robotics previously demonstrated components of this technology in 2022 with the release of its robotic hand, which used the same Myofiber muscle system.

Artificial Muscles Robotic Arm Full Range of Motion + Static Strength Test (V11).

A few months ago, Clone Robotics also showed off a robotic torso

Torso 2 by Clone with Actuated Abdomen.

Other companies' robots typically use other types of actuators, such as solenoids and electric motors. Clone's pressure-based muscle system is an interesting approach, though getting Protoclone to stand and balance without the need for suspension or umbilicals may still prove a challenge.

Clone Robotics plans to start its production with 279 units called Clone Alpha, with plans to open preorders later in 2025. The company has not announced pricing for these initial units, but given the engineering challenges still ahead, a functional release any time soon seems optimistic.

Could A Robot Care For Grandma?

In the future, machines could be programmed to assist and comfort the elderly—and help meet the escalating demand for caregivers.

As part of the photographer's project, elderly people were asked to imagine how they would interact with a robot. A resident at Maison Ferrari, a retirement home in Clamart, France, volunteered to act as the robot's godmother. She pictured herself celebrating its birthday and decorated her chair with balloons.

ByClaudia Kalb

Photographs byYves Gellie

7 min read

This story appears in the January 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine.

When Goldie Nejat began developing robots in 2005, she spent much of her time knocking on doors in hopes of demonstrating her high-tech prototypes. Back then, the health-care world was hesitant. "Now, it's the opposite," says Nejat, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Toronto. "I have people calling from around the world saying, When's your robot going to be ready?"

Nejat's machines, a special type known as socially assistive robots, are designed to engage with humans and could help fill an urgent need: caregiving for the elderly. The population of people over age 80 is projected to almost triple worldwide, from 143 million in 2019 to 426 million in 2050.

Loneiness is common among seniors. This woman at a long-term care facility in Montgeron, France, treated the robot as a confidant. They were indoors, but she imagined relaxing with it under the sun.

Photographer Yves Gellie introduced the robot to elderly people over several months. He didn't expect everyone to warm to it. Some weren't interested, but others were eager to engage. This woman, at the Broca Hospital in Paris, said the robot helped her forget her surroundings. She loves books and said she'd read to the robot.

Men tended to be less interested in the robot than women, including this man, a patient at La Rochefoucauld Hospital in Paris. Still, he said if the robot could play backgammon, he'd be interested in forming a relationship with it. Researchers believe robots could help fill a gap in companionship.

This resident of Maison Ferrari said she would like a robot to teach her basketball. Manufactured by Tokyo-based SoftBank Robotics, this robot is not programmed for that. However, its software, designed by ZoraBots in Belgium, can help people complete a range of tasks, including exercise.

Such robots could be especially useful for patients with Alzheimer's disease or dementia because the robots can be programmed to assist with everything from providing medication reminders to leading exercises. Nejat's robots also can help run bingo and memory games to keep patients cognitively active.

Inspired by robots' potential to help the elderly, French photographer Yves Gellie spent two years creating the award-winning 2019 film, Year of the Robot, which documents interactions between elderly people and social robots in long-term care facilities in France and Belgium. In the film Gellie and his assistant, Maxime Jacobs, humanize robots by allowing active engagement between person and machine. In scenes that appear futuristic, people play piano, dance, and even tearfully divulge secrets with their robotic companions.

Can a robot affect emotional behavior? Medical staff members in Belgium told Gellie that this woman's frequent interactions with the robot helped reduce her recurring stress. Her wish was to be amazed by the robot every morning. Here, she watches it lift weights.

After completing his film, Gellie embarked on a related photography project in which he asked some of the same subjects to imagine their dream scenario with a robot. What would they most like to do? In the images shown here, Gellie documented people's interactions with robots after months of observation. The project was not intended to be therapeutic or to show the robots' actual capabilities. Instead, it explored humans' capacity to form relationships with machines.

Critics have worried that caregiving robots might eliminate human interaction and jobs. But the goal is to support human care, not replace it, says Brian Scassellati, head of Yale University's Social Robotics Lab. He's tested robots with a range of patients, and has found that daily interaction with robots can help children with autism spectrum disorder improve eye contact and social skills.

As Weverbos Long Term Residential Facility in Ghent, Belgium, this 94-year-old resident wanted a robot that would dance while she played the piano. Fabrice Goffin, co-CEO of ZoraBots, believes the robot's diminutive size makes it appear childlike, appealing to the elderly. "The honesty of a child also has no judgment," he says.

Cognitive psychologist Maribel Pino, executive director of the Broca Living Lab at the Broca Hospital (Greater Paris University Hospitals), one of the locations where pictures were taken, describes the engagement of the people photographed with the robots as authentic. After people spent time with a robot, many became attached to it.

As the field grows, scientists aim to better understand human-robot dynamics. Do robots offer an advantage because they aren't judgmental? Is a lack of emotion helpful? Will patients lose interest?

One benefit is clear, Scassellati says: Robots can provide personalized, on-demand care—and the need for that will only increase in the future.

The robot, known as NAO, has another advantage, says Gellie: It never gets angry or changes its mood. This 78-year-old man at Weverbos Long Term Residential Facility is an arts lover and admired the robot as if it were a sculpture. "If I had this robot with me in a museum," he told Gellie, "he would teach me everything."

Claudia Kalb has covered the science of genius, Pablo Picasso, and Leonardo da Vinci for National Geographic. Yves Gellie photographed Pitcairn Island for the French edition of the magazine.

China's EV Giants Are Betting Big On Humanoid Robots

At the 2025 CCTV New Year Gala last month, a televised spectacle watched by over a billion viewers in China, 16 humanoid robots took the stage. Clad in vibrant floral print jackets, they took part in a signature element of northeastern China's Yangko dance, twirling red handkerchiefs in unison with human dancers. But the robots weren't designed by their maker, Unitree, for this purpose. They were developed for general use, and they are already at work in China's EV sector.

As the electric-vehicle war in China calms down, leaving a few established players to dominate the field, Chinese EV giants are expanding into humanoid robotics. The shift is driven by financial necessity, but also by the advantages these companies command in the new sector: strong existing supply chains and years of experience building cutting-edge tech. 

Robots like the H1 that performed at the gala have moved into Chinese EV factories thanks to partnerships between Unitree and EV makers like BYD and XPeng. But now, China's EV companies are not just using these humanoid robots—they're building them. GAC Group, a state-owned carmaker, has developed the GoMate robot  to install wires in cars on its production line. The company plans to mass-produce GoMate by 2026 for use in factories and warehouses. Nio, an EV startup known for its battery-swap network, has partnered with the robot maker UBTech on top of forming its own in-house R&D team to build humanoid robots.

According to statistics from Shenzhen New Strategy Media's Industrial Research Institute, there were over 160 humanoid-robot manufacturers worldwide as of June 2024, of which more than 60 were in China, more than 30 in the United States, and about 40 in Europe. In addition to having the largest number of manufacturers, China stands out for the way its EV sector is backing most of these robotics companies.

Thanks in part to substantial government subsidies and concerted efforts from the tech sector, China has emerged as the world's largest EV market and manufacturer. In 2024, 54% of cars sold in China were electric or hybrid, compared with 8% in the US. China also became the first nation to reach an annual production of 10 million "new energy vehicles" (NEVs), a category that includes all vehicles powered partly or entirely by electricity.

The EV companies that achieved this remarkable growth have amassed significant capital, technological capacity, and industry prestige. Leading firms like Li Auto, XPeng, and Nio—each founded roughly a decade ago—have become household names. Traditional manufacturers that have transitioned to EV production, such as BYD and Geely, have also emerged as major players in the tech world, thanks to their engineering skills and the AI-powered driving features they've introduced. 

However, despite the EV market's rapid expansion, industry profit margins have been on a downward trajectory. From 2018 to 2023, the number of NEV companies plummeted from over 480 to approximately 40, owing to a combination of consolidation and bankruptcy. Data from China's National Bureau of Statistics indicates that since 2021, profit margins in China's automotive sector have declined from 6.1% to 4.6%. Last year also saw many Chinese EV companies do rounds of large-scale layoffs. Intense price and technology wars have ensued, with companies like BYD offering advanced autonomous-driving features in increasingly affordable models.

The fierce competition has created a pressing need for new avenues of financing and growth. "This situation compels automakers to seek cost reductions while crafting narratives that bolster investor confidence—both of which are driving them toward humanoid robotics," says Yao Jia, a robotics researcher at Aegon Industrial Fund.

Technological overlap is a significant factor driving EV companies into the robotics arena. Both fields rely on capabilities like environmental perception and interaction, using sensors and algorithms that can process external information to guide machine movements. 

Lidar and depth cameras, initially developed for autonomous driving, are now being repurposed for robotics. XPeng's Iron robot uses the same path-planning and object-recognition algorithms as its EVs, enabling precise navigation in factory environments.

Battery technology is another crossover area. GAC's GoMate robot uses EV-derived battery packs to achieve a six-hour run time, making it suitable for extended factory shifts.

China's extensive supply chain infrastructure supports these developments. According to a report by Morgan Stanley, China controls 63% of the key companies in the global supply chain for humanoid-robot components, particularly in actuator parts and rare earth processing. This dominance enables Chinese manufacturers to produce humanoid robots at lower prices than their international competitors. Unitree's H1 is priced at $90,000—less than half the cost of Boston Dynamics' Atlas, a comparable model.

"The supply chain advantage could give China an upper hand when the robots hit the point of mass manufacturing," says Yao.

However, challenges persist in areas like artificial intelligence and chip development, which are still dominated by companies beyond China's borders, such as Nvidia, TSMC, Palantir, and Qualcomm. "Domestic humanoid-robot research largely focuses on hardware and application scenarios. Compared to international counterparts, I feel there is insufficient attention to the maturity and reliability of control software," says Jiayi Wang, a researcher at the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence.

In the meantime, the Chinese government is promoting automation through initiatives like the Robotics+ action plan, which aims to double the country's manufacturing robot density by 2025 relative to 2020 levels. Additionally, some provincial governments are offering research and development subsidies covering up to 30% of project costs to encourage innovation in automation technologies. It's becoming clear that China is now committed to becoming a global leader in robotics and automation, just as it did with EVs.

Wang Xingxing, the CEO of Unitree Robots, said this well in a recent interview to local media: "Robotics is where EVs were a decade ago—a trillion-yuan battlefield waiting to be claimed." 

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