AthenaZero robot throws baseball at 113 km/h, lands Science Robotics cover
lukas_m_ziegler · x · 2026-09-20
The AthenaZero humanoid from raiinstitute is on this month's Science Robotics cover after throwing a baseball at 113 km/h.
The key is its hardware design:
- Effective mass: only 3.97 kg at the wrist, versus 29.21 kg for a Franka and 34.72 kg for a UR5e measured the same way — nearly an order of magnitude lower, close to a human arm.
- How: conventional industrial arms use gear ratios of 80:1 or higher, and gearboxes multiply reflected inertia by the square of the ratio. AthenaZero uses quasi-direct drive at roughly 5:1 on most joints and remotises transmissions so heavy components sit proximal, near the torso.
- Specs: one-DoF torso, two 7-DoF arms, two 6-DoF underactuated hands — 22 actuators across 27 joints; 1.6 m tall, 1.8 m wingspan, 3+ kg payload.
More from Embodied
- MIT builds 2nm polymer nano-spring device that mimics neurons for brain-inspired computing — MacrinePhD · 2026-09-20
- Faraday Future unveils nine AI robots and four industry solutions — emmanuelvivier · 2026-09-20
- Nvidia releases SONIC, a humanoid whole-body controller trained on 100M motion sequences — emmanuelvivier · 2026-09-20
- HSImul3R makes 3D reconstruction simulation-ready, cutting penetration rate from 69.5% to 22.9% — 机器之心 · 2026-09-20
- Ant Group's LingBot-Map, ECCV 2026 Oral: streaming 3D reconstruction from one RGB camera at ~20 FPS — jiqizhixin · 2026-09-20
- World Labs CEO Alex Kendall to Headline Long Horizon Physical AI Summit — alexgkendall · 2026-09-20