Cross-cut: actuator-electric-harmonic-drive

22 corpus entries disclose this subsystem.

Earliest disclosure: 1986

Listed in chronological order. Each entry’s prior_art_notes and disclosure_citation constitute the citeable prior art material.

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Honda E0 (1986)

• id: honda-e0
• corpus: private
• creator: Honda Motor Co.
• disclosure: Honda Motor Co. internal program, publicly disclosed retrospectively in Honda’s ASIMO documentation.
• ip status: trade-secret
• prior art notes: First in the Honda lineage that culminates in ASIMO. Establishes Honda’s commitment to electric over hydraulic for humanoid bipedal locomotion. Anticipates: electric-actuator bipedal walking platforms.

Robonaut 1 (1996)

• id: robonaut-1
• corpus: academic
• creator: Robert O. Ambrose, Myron A. Diftler, et al.; NASA Johnson Space Center, with DARPA
• disclosure: Diftler, M.A., Ambrose, R.O. ‘Robonaut: A Robotic Astronaut Assistant’. International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (i-SAIRAS) 2001 (consolidated paper); earlier disclosures NASA JSC 1996 onwards.
• ip status: public-domain
• prior art notes: Robonaut 1 is the academic predecessor to Robonaut 2 and the deepest NASA-side disclosure of humanoid platform IP for space applications. Anticipates: (1) torso-only humanoid form factor for collaborative work with humans — relevant to current commercial torso-only humanoid claims; (2) VR teleoperation with force-feedback gloves as the operator interface — relevant to teleoperation IP; (3) tendon-driven anthropomorphic hands integrated with harmonic-drive arms — relevant to integrated-hand-arm claims. NASA JSC publications and i-SAIRAS proceedings are publicly accessible. Modern humanoid hand claims face this 1996 academic anchor.

Honda P2 (1996-12-20)

• id: honda-p2
• corpus: private
• creator: Honda Motor Co.
• disclosure: Honda Motor Co. press release, December 20, 1996, Tokyo. Hirose, M. and Ogawa, K. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 365, 11–19 (2007).
• ip status: patented
• prior art notes: P2’s December 1996 reveal is among the most significant single events in humanoid robotics history. Honda’s ZMP-based dynamic balancing as publicly disclosed via P2 anticipates virtually all subsequent commercial bipedal locomotion claims using ZMP. Honda’s 1990s patent filings, many of which have now expired, form the deepest commercial prior art chain in the field.

Honda P3 (1997-09)

• id: honda-p3
• corpus: private
• creator: Honda Motor Co.
• disclosure: Honda Motor Co. press materials, September 1997. Hirose, M. and Ogawa, K. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 365, 11–19 (2007).
• ip status: patented
• prior art notes: Final Honda P-series prototype before ASIMO. Refinements to the P2 architecture; key continuity in the Honda prior art chain.

ASIMO (2000-10-31)

• id: asimo
• corpus: private
• creator: Honda Motor Co.
• disclosure: Honda Motor Co. press conference, Tokyo, October 31, 2000.
• ip status: patented
• prior art notes: ASIMO’s public disclosures and Honda’s published papers anticipate most claimed innovations in modern bipedal humanoids. The Hirose/Ogawa 2007 Phil. Trans. paper is a particularly comprehensive disclosure that should be referenced when reading current humanoid patent claims.

HRP-2 (2002)

• id: hrp-2
• corpus: academic
• creator: AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology), Kawada Industries
• disclosure: Kaneko, K. et al. ‘Design of prototype humanoid robotics platform for HRP.’ IROS 2002.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: OpenHRP is itself foundational prior art for open robotics simulation frameworks. HRP-2 was among the first humanoids to publicly demonstrate falling-and-recovering behaviors.

HUBO (2004)

• id: hubo
• corpus: academic
• creator: KAIST, Hubo Lab (Jun-Ho Oh)
• disclosure: Park, Ill-Woo et al. ‘Mechanical Design of Humanoid Robot Platform KHR-3 (HUBO).’ IEEE-RAS Humanoids 2005.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: DRC-Hubo’s 2015 win demonstrated transformer-style transitioning between bipedal and wheeled-knee modes for navigating both stairs and flat ground. Anticipates: hybrid locomotion modes in humanoids.

DLR Hand-II (2004)

• id: dlr-hand-ii
• corpus: academic
• creator: Butterfass, Grebenstein, Liu, Hirzinger; DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
• disclosure: Butterfass, J., Grebenstein, M., Liu, H., Hirzinger, G. ‘DLR-Hand II: next generation of a dextrous robot hand’. IEEE ICRA, 2001 (early disclosure); Butterfass, J. et al. ‘Design and Experiences with DLR Hand II’. World Automation Congress, 2004.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: DLR Hand-II is the canonical academic disclosure of joint-torque-sensing dexterous hands with compact actuator integration. Anticipates: (1) impedance-controlled dexterous manipulation with proprioceptive sensing — directly relevant to claims on torque-controlled humanoid hands (every modern humanoid hand IP); (2) cable-tendon transmission with harmonic-drive primary reducer — relevant to combined-mechanism actuator claims; (3) per-joint integrated torque sensor with calibrated absolute position — anticipates proprioceptive-actuator IP. The DLR series (Hand-II, then Hand-III, then Hand Arm System) is one of the deepest academic technical lineages in dexterous manipulation. Continuously published in IEEE proceedings since 2001.

WABIAN-2 (2006)

• id: wabian-2
• corpus: academic
• creator: Waseda University, Takanishi Laboratory
• disclosure: Ogura, Y. et al. ‘Development of a New Humanoid Robot WABIAN-2.’ ICRA 2006.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: WABIAN-2’s stretched-knee gait disclosure is significant prior art for any humanoid walking control claim aiming at more human-like locomotion (less crouched, more upright knees during stance). Distinct from ASIMO’s bent-knee paradigm. The Takanishi laboratory’s continued publication makes this a well-anchored academic disclosure.

iCub (2008)

• id: icub
• corpus: academic
• creator: Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the RobotCub Consortium
• disclosure: Metta, G. et al. ‘The iCub humanoid robot: an open platform for research in embodied cognition.’ PerMIS 2008.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: Among the earliest fully open-source humanoid platforms with hardware design released. Anticipates: tendon-driven anthropomorphic hands, full-body artificial skin, open robotics middleware.

HRP-3 (2008)

• id: hrp-3
• corpus: academic
• creator: AIST and Kawada Industries
• disclosure: Kaneko, K. et al. ‘Humanoid Robot HRP-3.’ IROS 2008.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: HRP-3’s environmental sealing disclosures anticipate subsequent IP-rated humanoid claims. The HRP series is a deep commons asset because of consistent open academic disclosure across generations.

Ott Cartesian Impedance Control (2008)

• id: ott-impedance-control
• corpus: academic
• creator: Christian Ott, Alin Albu-Schäffer, Gerd Hirzinger; DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics
• disclosure: Ott, Christian. Cartesian Impedance Control of Redundant and Flexible-Joint Robots. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics 49, Springer, 2008. ISBN 978-3-540-69253-9. Earlier: Albu-Schäffer, A., Ott, C., Hirzinger, G. ‘A unified passivity-based control framework for position, torque and impedance control of flexible joint robots.’ International Journal of Robotics Research 26(1): 23-39, January 2007.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: Ott’s impedance-control framework is the canonical academic disclosure of Cartesian impedance with explicit joint-flexibility modeling — the foundation of every modern collaborative torque-controlled robot (KUKA LBR iiwa, Franka Emika Panda, all DLR-derived humanoids including TORO and Justin). Anticipates: (1) passivity-based Cartesian impedance with provable stability — directly relevant to claims on safe-interaction humanoid IP; (2) flexible-joint compensation via post-reducer torque sensing — relevant to harmonic-drive actuator claims (every modern humanoid arm uses post-reducer torque sensing); (3) redundancy-resolved Cartesian impedance — relevant to whole-body compliance claims. Springer monograph and IJRR paper heavily cited (>2000 citations). Direct lineage to Franka Panda, KUKA iiwa, and modern humanoid platforms.

DLR Justin (Rollin’ Justin) (2009-05)

• id: dlr-justin
• corpus: academic
• creator: Borst, Wimboeck, Schmidt, Fuchs, Brunner, Zacharias, Giordano, Konietschke, Sepp, Fuchs, Rink, Albu-Schäffer, Hirzinger; DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics
• disclosure: Borst, C., Wimboeck, T., Schmidt, F., Fuchs, M., Brunner, B., Zacharias, F., Giordano, P. R., Konietschke, R., Sepp, W., Fuchs, S., Rink, C., Albu-Schäffer, A., Hirzinger, G. ‘Rollin’ Justin — Mobile platform with variable base’. IEEE ICRA, May 2009.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: Justin is the canonical academic disclosure of wheeled humanoid mobile manipulation with full impedance control. Anticipates and provides extensive prior art for: (1) wheeled humanoid platform for service tasks — relevant to claims on wheeled humanoid IP (Diligent Moxi, NEXTAGE follow this paradigm); (2) torque-controlled dual-arm coordination — relevant to bimanual humanoid manipulation IP; (3) variable-wheelbase mobile base — relevant to morphology-changing wheeled platform claims. DLR has published Justin disclosures in ICRA, IROS, Humanoids continuously since 2009. Modern wheeled humanoid claims face this deep academic anchor.

HRP-4 (2010)

• id: hrp-4
• corpus: academic
• creator: AIST and Kawada Industries
• disclosure: Kaneko, K. et al. ‘Humanoid Robot HRP-4: Humanoid Robotics Platform with Lightweight and Slim Body.’ IROS 2010.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: HRP-4 lightweight design anticipates subsequent slim-form humanoid claims. The 2010 IROS paper provides full mechanical specifications openly.

DLR TORO (2014-07)

• id: dlr-toro
• corpus: academic
• creator: Englsberger, Werner, Ott, Henze, Roa, Garofalo, Burger, Beyer, Eiberger, Schmid, Albu-Schäffer; DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics
• disclosure: Englsberger, J., Werner, A., Ott, C., Henze, B., Roa, M.A., Garofalo, G., Burger, R., Beyer, A., Eiberger, O., Schmid, K., Albu-Schäffer, A. ‘Overview of the torque-controlled humanoid robot TORO’. IEEE-RAS Humanoids, July 2014.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: TORO is the canonical academic disclosure of full-body torque-controlled bipedal humanoid with DCM (Divergent Component of Motion) walking control. Anticipates: (1) torque-controlled whole-body bipedal walking — directly relevant to claims on whole-body torque-controlled humanoid platforms; (2) DCM walking as an alternative to ZMP — relevant to walking-control IP; (3) impedance-control whole-body interaction with humans — relevant to safe-human-interaction humanoid claims. DLR’s Englsberger paper introduced the DCM formulation that subsequent humanoids (HRP-5P, several private platforms) adopted. Publicly funded research with extensive IEEE-proceedings publication.

PAL TALOS (2017)

• id: pal-talos
• corpus: private
• creator: PAL Robotics, in collaboration with LAAS-CNRS
• disclosure: Stasse, O. et al. ‘TALOS: A new humanoid research platform targeted for industrial applications.’ IEEE Humanoids 2017.
• ip status: patented
• prior art notes: TALOS is among the better-published European industrial humanoids. Stasse 2017 IEEE Humanoids paper provides comprehensive design disclosure.

HRP-5P (2018-09)

• id: hrp-5p
• corpus: academic
• creator: AIST and Kawada Industries
• disclosure: Kaneko, K. et al. ‘Humanoid Robot HRP-5P: An Electrically Actuated Humanoid Robot With High-Power and Wide-Range Joints.’ IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 4(2), 2019.
• ip status: open-permissive
• prior art notes: HRP-5P’s construction-task demonstrations and high-power actuator disclosures are among the most thoroughly published examples of humanoid construction work. Anticipates many subsequent industrial humanoid claims.

Stanford JackRabbot 2 (JR-2) wheeled-arm research robot (2018-10)

• id: stanford-jr2-2018
• corpus: academic
• creator: Stanford Vision and Learning Lab (Silvio Savarese et al.)
• disclosure: Martín-Martín, Roberto, Patel, Mihir, Rezatofighi, Hamid, Shenoi, Abhijeet, Gwak, JunYoung, Frankel, Eric, Sadeghian, Amir, Savarese, Silvio. ‘JRDB: A Dataset and Benchmark for Visual Perception for Navigation in Human Environments.’ arXiv:1910.11792, October 2019. Robot platform first disclosed: Stanford Vision and Learning Lab, October 2018 release announcement; JRDB dataset released alongside.
• ip status: public-domain
• prior art notes: Stanford JR-2 (2018) is a canonical academic wheeled-arm research humanoid for social navigation research, with associated public benchmark dataset (JRDB). Anticipates with full specificity: (1) claims on wheeled-balancing humanoids with dual mounted manipulators at human shoulder height — JR-2’s Segway-base + dual Kinova architecture is a published exemplar; (2) claims on 360° multi-modal sensor fusion (lidar+cameras+audio) for human-environment navigation — JR-2 carries the full sensor stack; (3) claims on human-aware social navigation benchmarks paired with platform — JRDB releases 64 minutes of annotated multi-modal data alongside the platform. Stanford SVL hosts CAD/sensor specs and the JRDB benchmark openly. Modern wheeled-humanoid IP filings (Apptronik Apollo, Agility Cassie/Digit base, 1X NEO) face this 8-year-deep academic anchor.

ANYmal-D industrial quadruped (ETH RSL / ANYbotics) (2022-09)

• id: anymal-d-eth-rsl-2022
• corpus: academic
• creator: ANYbotics AG / ETH Zürich Robotic Systems Lab (Marco Hutter)
• disclosure: ANYbotics product disclosure ANYmal D, September 2022; technical updates in Miki, Takahiro et al. ‘Learning robust perceptive locomotion for quadrupedal robots in the wild.’ Science Robotics 7(62), 2022; Hoeller, David et al. ‘ANYmal Parkour: Learning agile navigation for quadrupedal robots.’ Science Robotics 9(88), 2024.
• ip status: public-domain
• prior art notes: ANYmal-D is the production-deployed industrial quadruped of the 2022-2024 period and the platform for the headline RSL/ANYbotics RL-locomotion papers in Science Robotics. It anticipates with full specificity: (1) claims on perceptive-locomotion RL policies trained in simulation and transferred to outdoor industrial terrain — Miki Sci.Rob. 2022 publishes the teacher-student distillation pipeline running on this hardware; (2) claims on agile parkour-class learned locomotion — Hoeller Sci.Rob. 2024 publishes the policy on ANYmal-D; (3) claims on series-elastic torque-controlled quadruped joints in IP67 industrial enclosures — ANYdrive disclosed at IROS 2018 with hardware refresh on D-variant. Modern legged-robot IP claims face this timestamped industrial-deployment anchor.

AgiBot A1 (2023-08)

• id: agibot-a1
• corpus: private
• creator: AgiBot (Shanghai Zhiyuan New Technology Co.)
• disclosure: AgiBot (Shanghai Zhiyuan New Technology) public reveal, August 2023.
• ip status: patented
• prior art notes: AgiBot’s actuator IP heavily anticipated by Honda P-series harmonic drive work and MIT Cheetah QDD lineage. Chinese-language patent filings should be enumerated in strengthening pass.

Atlas Electric (Boston Dynamics) (2024-04)

• id: boston-dynamics-atlas-electric-2024
• corpus: private
• creator: Boston Dynamics (Hyundai subsidiary since 2021)
• disclosure: Boston Dynamics. ‘An Electric New Era for Atlas’ announcement April 17 2024 via boston-dynamics.com (replacing the hydraulic Atlas, which retired April 16 2024). Subsequent capability demonstrations 2024-2025 including Hyundai factory deployment preparation. Trade-secret commercial humanoid platform.
• ip status: trade-secret
• prior art notes: Atlas Electric is Boston Dynamics’ canonical 2024+ commercial all-electric humanoid (succeeding the 11-year hydraulic Atlas lineage). 1.5-year-deep public-disclosure prior art for: super-human range-of-motion humanoid joint design, all-electric humanoid form factor at compact mass. Public capability surface (viral demo videos) is fully covered by deeper academic prior art chains: HRP-2/HRP-4/HRP-5P (full-size humanoid lineage); Berkeley Humanoid + ToddlerBot (round-11, all-electric humanoid); the Hwangbo ANYmal sim-to-real lineage for the RL training substrate. Specific super-human-ROM joint kinematics are the architectural distinction; corpus has Salisbury / DLR / Pisa-IIT joint mechanism prior art back to 1982 for kinematic ranges that exceed standard anthropomorphic humanoids.

Unitree H2 (2025-10)

• id: unitree-h2
• corpus: private
• creator: Unitree Robotics
• disclosure: Unitree Robotics H2 reveal, October 2025.
• ip status: patented
• prior art notes: H2 builds on H1 architecture; same prior art chain back through Mini Cheetah.