Clone Robotics has officially unveiled its full humanoid robot, Clone Alpha, and started accepting preorders for its first production units. With synthetic organ systems designed to mimic the human body, Clone Alpha aims to set itself apart in the competitive humanoid robotics market.
Key Points:
- Clone Robotics is taking preorders for the first 279 production units of its humanoid robot, Clone Alpha.
- Clone Alpha features synthetic organ systems, including skeletal, muscular, vascular, and nervous systems.
- The company has yet to showcase Clone Alpha in action, and skepticism remains until we see real-world proof of its capabilities.
Three years after demonstrating a water-powered robotic arm that could lift a 7kg dumbbell, Clone Robotics is making its boldest move yet into the humanoid robot market. The company has begun accepting preorders for Clone Alpha, positioning it as a distinctly different approach from competitors like Tesla's Optimus or Figure 01.
What sets Clone Alpha apart is its biomimetic architecture. Rather than using traditional robotics components, Clone has developed synthetic versions of human organ systems. The robot features artificial muscles called Myofibers that contract using water pressure, a polymer skeleton with 206 bone analogues, and a hydraulic "vascular system" powered by a compact 500-watt pump.
"The Clone's muscular system animates the skeleton thanks to Clone's revolutionary artificial muscle technology Myofiber," says Clone Robotics on their website. The company claims these artificial muscles can contract 30% in under 50 milliseconds while generating a kilogram of force from just three grams of material.
The robot's skeletal system mirrors human anatomy, featuring articulated joints with artificial ligaments and extensive degrees of freedom. Just the upper body contains 164 points of articulation, with 26 degrees of freedom in each hand, wrist, and elbow combination.
Clone's approach represents an intriguing departure from conventional robotics. Instead of rigid actuators and motors, they're betting on soft, water-powered artificial muscles to achieve human-like movement. The company has already demonstrated pieces of their technology, including their robotic hand and torso prototypes.
However, potential customers and industry observers should note that Clone has yet to publicly demonstrate a complete Alpha robot in action. While individual components show promise, the full integration of these systems into a functioning humanoid remains to be proven.
The company's founders, CEO Dhanush Radhakrishnan and CTO Lucas Kozlik, envision Clone Alpha as more than just a technical achievement. They see it as a step toward robots that can handle everyday tasks in homes and workplaces. The robot includes four depth cameras and runs on what Clone calls "Cybernet," their visuomotor foundation model.
For now, the focus is on delivering those first 279 production units. Whether Clone can successfully scale up from impressive prototypes to full-fledged humanoid robots will be a crucial test of their biomimetic approach to robotics.
The article has been updated to remove reference to the NVIDIA GPU version being used. We have reached out to Clone for clarification.