Last year, 21 humanoid robots squared up against each other in the World Humanoid Robot Games’ half marathon race in Beijing in an unintentionally hilarious debauchery of broken limbs, face plants — plus sweaty human engineers, who were forced to accompany them along the way.
Coming in third place was a bipedal robot called Walker 2, by the Shanghai-based robotics company DroidUP, an impressive feat that required no battery swaps after an exhausting four hours and 25 minutes of running.
Now, the firm has turned its attention to something far more unsettling than watching a robot scuttle across the finish line. DroidUP recently showed off Moya, a “warm” robot that features human-like skin and eerily animated moving facial features.
“Warm” isn’t just a turn of phrase, either — Moya’s skin can maintain a humanlike temperature of 89 to 96 degrees Fahrenheit, a feature that could make it more difficult for DroidUP to argue that the bot isn’t intended for adult purposes.
The company showed off its latest invention at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang Robotics Valley, calling it the “world’s first highly bionic robot that deeply integrates human aesthetics and advanced humanoid sports” in a translated press release.
The bot’s face is disarming. The company says it allows for “rich expressions such as joy, anger, sorrow and happiness”; in a video shared by the Chinese goverment-run Shanghai Media Group (SMB), Moya can even be seen catching the reporter’s line of sight by adjusting the direction of its pupils.
But unlike many of its hyper-realistic counterparts, Moya can go for a walk as well. In a demonstration, Moya stiffly walks past the camera as its actuators audibly click along, firmly dispelling the illusion. The company claims Moya has a 92 percent human-like walking accuracy, but given the evidence, we’d wager the real number is less flattering than that.
“Most robots on the market today have hard shells and feel cold and mechanical,” DroidUP founder Li Qingdu told SMB in the video. “A robot that truly serves human life should be warm, have a temperature, almost like a living being that people can connect with.”
Underneath it all is the company’s latest Walker 3 robot platform, which features a suite of cameras and LIDAR sensors that allow for “autonomous path planning and real-time obstacle avoidance capabilities,” according to the press release.
Compared to its Walker 2 predecessor, who finished third during its half marathon attempt last year, Walker 3 is a lot more compact and lighter, allowing it to be “integrated into a very realistic torso, enabling the creation of a more aesthetically lifelike humanoid robot,” as DroidUP product director Tang Jun told SMB.
More on humanoid robots: Alarming New Video Shows Robot Making Incredibly Realistic Facial Expressions
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