HELIOS

ORBIT Robotics

Switzerland

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HELIOS is the current humanoid platform from ORBIT Robotics, an ETH Zurich focus project building robots for orbital operations, and it is deliberately unlike the humanoids being built for factories and warehouses on Earth. It has four arms and no legs at all: in microgravity a walking biped makes little sense, so HELIOS uses its arms to move through station interiors, to hold position, and to do the work, with the company framing the arms as a way to move, stabilise and work rather than only to manipulate. The upper body carries a head and torso with four arms arranged as an upper and a lower pair, each ending in a multi-fingered hand. Its arms are tendon-driven: motors sit close to the shoulder to cut moving mass, while spools and cables drive the joints, and the elbow uses a rolling contact joint for low-friction motion that keeps both strength and compliance. HELIOS is intended for cargo delivery handling, space station logistics and maintenance, and research and EVA assistance, targeting reliable assistance in dense interiors and perceiving structured task spaces so that crew time is returned to science. It follows IKARUS, the project's first test bed, which was built in two months and used to develop teleoperation and autonomous task policies; the team says that opening chapter is complete and that HELIOS is the complete humanoid prototype carrying the mission further. Built and tested at ETH Zurich, the project combines controls, perception, electronics, mechanics and biomechanics in one integrated effort.