3D-printed Humanoid Robotic Provides Fairly Priced, Customizable Platform For Learners

As an undergraduate pupil, Yufeng Chi (B.S.’23 EECS) was captivated by humanoid and legged robots. Wanting to check further, he would watch YouTube motion pictures and dive into class duties, nonetheless getting hands-on experience and tinkering on his private was not easy.

“I was contemplating developing my very personal mannequin of a humanoid robotic, nonetheless once more then, points like actuators, motors and robotics kits weren’t broadly accessible—and builders saved the provision code personal,” he said. “So I started looking for strategies I would [make a] DIY robotic.”

Now a Ph.D. pupil throughout the Division of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Sciences, Chi is part of a crew of Berkeley engineers that has developed Berkeley Humanoid Lite, a low-cost, open-source robotic fabricated from 3D-printed parts. They not too way back supplied a paper on their work on the 2025 Robotics Science and Strategies conference (RSS 2025), held in Los Angeles June 21–25.

Humanoid robotics has superior shortly by the years, with items now being designed for functions in industrial automation, effectively being care, evaluation and personal assist. No matter rising curiosity on this topic, Chi said most commercially accessible {{hardware}} stays comparatively pricey.

With the passage of time, value has turn into the less complicated draw back to resolve. The bigger drawback, he said, has been addressing customization and helpful useful resource factors.

Industrial corporations may provide totally constructed robots, nonetheless the proprietary nature of their {{hardware}} and software program program design normally makes it robust to change parts or to change elements. This limits alternate options for novice roboticists to experiment with customization and to further uncover the boundaries of humanoid utilized sciences.

On the an identical time, not everyone has entry to state-of-the-art instruments. “Some evaluation duties assume you’ve bought entry to fancy CNC [computer numerical control] machines for superior fabrication and are using customized PCBs [printed circuit boards] for the electronics,” said Chi. “In a completely outfitted lab, making a robotic from scratch may be doable, nonetheless for lots of, along with hobbyists and DIYers, it’s merely out of attain.”

By rising Berkeley Humanoid Lite, the researchers bought all the way down to current a launching degree for anyone with an curiosity in humanoid know-how.

“Our intention is to help people throughout the evaluation and education space turn into accustomed to how a humanoid system works, along with tips about learn how to assemble and develop a robotic platform, by providing them with a template to get started,” he said. “It’s all about making an attempt into an occasion system and developing this system from scratch, one block after one different. Then after you’ve bought gained experience and confidence, it’s possible you’ll assemble upon it and take it to a model new diploma.”

The core of Berkeley Humanoid Lite’s design is a modular 3D-printed gearbox for the actuators and robotic physique. All completely different elements may very well be sourced from broadly accessible e-commerce platforms or fabricated with customary desktop 3D printers. This retains your entire {{hardware}} value beneath $5,000 (based totally on U.S. market prices), a fraction of the worth of shopping for a commercially constructed robotic of comparable scale. In addition to, replacements for broken or worn parts may very well be merely fabricated using the 3D printer.

As quickly as completed, Berkeley Humanoid Lite stands at about 1 meter and weighs roughly 16 kg.

Chi estimates that it’d take a novice roboticist about one week to assemble their very personal Berkeley Humanoid Lite, though this timeline may fluctuate counting on one’s skillset and experience diploma. “The good news is that in our Discord and completely different neighborhood group chats, we’re seeing clients actually developing it,” he said. “They’ve displayed footage of assembled robots, which is pretty thrilling.”

Since Chi began engaged on Berkeley Humanoid Lite 4 years prior to now, new startup corporations have begun selling further fairly priced metallic actuators. Nonetheless Chi believes Berkeley Humanoid Lite’s modularity offers it a vital profit over enterprise merchandise.

“Using our technique, you may start by developing one actuator, make it flip, then try inserting multiples proper right into a simple arm or leg,” he said.

Recognizing that 3D-printed parts inherently lack the facility of provides comparable to aluminum, the researchers adopted a cycloidal gear design for the gearbox contained within the actuator.

“The first revenue is that the gear’s tooth are very huge,” said Chi. “This distributes the load all through a much bigger ground house than typical gear strategies, decreasing stress and placed on.”

In addition to, they examined quite a lot of aspects of the 3D-printed actuators to validate their sturdiness. “Our findings confirmed that the 3D-printed actuator is at least on par with completely different actuators,” Chi said, “or contained in the tolerance margin to understand these higher-level duties and skills.”

He added, “We designed this so that if an actuator breaks down, it’s possible you’ll merely print one different gear area and swap it out, [but] now we’ve however to interrupt a single actuator on any of our check out robots, even after inserting them by way of all these experiments.”

The researchers moreover examined Berkeley Humanoid Lite’s means to complete simple duties, comparable to grasping objects and strolling forward.

To permit hand manipulation, the researchers assembled a teleoperation system for the robotic. Using joystick controls, they demonstrated Berkeley Humanoid Lite’s means to grab and play with devices, along with a Rubik’s Cube. The researchers moreover used reinforcement finding out to develop a locomotion controller that allows the bipedal robotic to walk.

Chi well-known that whereas the robotic’s locomotion talents are a “bit wonky and by no means pretty elegant,” he’s hopeful that the Berkeley Humanoid Lite neighborhood will work collectively to reinforce the software program program code over time and resolve any bugs.

Berkeley Humanoid Lite’s {{hardware}} design, embedded code, and training and deployment frameworks are completely open provide. The researchers wished clients to have the flexibility to see how all of the issues works and to easily customise the robotic.

“I think about throughout the spirit of open-source communities, the idea of an ecosystem the place people share ideas and information,” said Chi. “Our hope is that Berkeley Humanoid Lite will help switch us nearer to democratizing the occasion of humanoid robotics.”

Together with Chi, the study’s co-authors embrace Koushil Sreenath, affiliate professor of mechanical engineering and the study’s principal investigator; mechanical engineering Ph.D. faculty college students Qiayuan Liao, Junfeng Prolonged, Xiaoyu Huang and Zhongyu Li; and Sophia Shao, affiliate professor, and Borivoje Nikolic, professor, every with the Division of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Sciences.