Alex

IHMC Robotics

United States

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Alex is IHMC's newest humanoid and the platform that took the institute's humanoid work out of the lab. Where Nadia mixed hydraulic and electric actuation and mostly stayed indoors on a tether, Alex is fully electric, with custom high-power quasi-direct-drive actuators built around cycloidal transmissions, and it carries its own computation, perception and power, so it can work outdoors without a cable. The published profile is 175 cm tall, 85 kg, with 29 joints across the body, aluminium alloy structure and low-friction transmissions, stereo vision and five-finger hands. It is controlled by IHMC's whole-body control and behaviour software with an open Alex SDK, connects over wireless teleoperation off-tether, and is explicitly not rated safe around people: it is a research robot for hazardous environments operating under supervision. Development is funded by the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Laboratory and the Army Data Analysis Center, and the target is outdoor urban operations, military scenarios and disaster response where a human teammate would otherwise be put at risk.