Menlo Achieves Zero-Shot Sim2real for Asimov Biped, Citing Unitree Early-2025 Parity
chris_j_paxton · x · 2026-08-27
Menlo Research spent 8 months closing the locomotion sim2real gap on its bipedal Asimov robot and now claims zero-shot sim2real: policies trained in simulation run on real hardware without extra tuning.
Key points:
- Flat-terrain walking generalizes to slight slopes and grass textures, and works across multiple robot units, not just one hand-tuned lab unit
- Base policies run onboard at 50Hz on the robot's motion control board, driving 25 motors and sensors with no external compute
- The team argues the fix was less about model nudging and more about making the underlying hardware more deterministic
- They assess parity with Unitree locomotion circa early 2025, with fast progress remaining
- Learnings should transfer to other open-hardware robots
Related event: Open-Source Asimov Robot Achieves Zero-Shot Sim2Real Bipedal Control(2 posts)→
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