A humanoid robot developed by NASA has completed a 10-year research placement at the University of Edinburgh and is returning to the agency’s Johnson Space Center. The robot, known as Valkyrie, is one of three prototypes created by NASA and the only unit that had been stationed outside the United States. The human-sized machine was provided to the university under a decade-long lease to support research in humanoid robotics.
Valkyrie was originally developed as part of NASA’s work on robotic systems intended to assist future missions to Mars. The robot was designed to carry out tasks in environments considered hazardous or inaccessible to humans, including pre-deployment activities and maintenance of equipment on the Martian surface.
Standing about 1.8 metres tall and weighing approximately 125 kilograms, the robot was built with a humanoid structure intended to allow it to operate in environments designed for people or to collaborate directly with human workers. Its hardware includes Series Elastic Actuators and a set of sensors designed to support safe interaction between humans and machines.
When the robot arrived in Edinburgh in 2016, it was capable of walking on flat surfaces and performing basic manipulation tasks such as holding and moving objects. Researchers at the university subsequently focused on expanding its capabilities through machine learning techniques that enabled the system to interpret sensor data and respond more effectively to its surroundings.
Work carried out during the project improved the robot’s walking and handling functions and enhanced its ability to interpret environmental information collected through onboard sensors. Researchers also studied how humanoid robots can adapt to changing conditions, navigate uneven terrain and connect perception data with real-time physical actions.
The research took place at the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University. The centre involved dozens of doctoral researchers and staff working on humanoid robot control, motion planning and perception. The project received support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation.
Vladimir Ivan, a former doctoral student involved in the research who is now chief technical officer at the Edinburgh-based robotics start-up Touchlab, said hosting the robot allowed researchers to advance work in mobility and stability while training new robotics specialists.
“Hosting NASA Valkyrie at the University of Edinburgh was a rare privilege at a time when humanoid robots were not commercially available and only a handful of research prototypes existed worldwide,” Ivan said. “It gave us a unique opportunity to advance fundamental research in mobility and stability – work that has since evolved into humanoid systems we see today – while helping to train and inspire a generation of roboticists.”
Research into humanoid robotics at the university continues using Talos, a 1.75-metre-tall robot delivered to the institution in 2020. Scientists are using the system to study locomotion, balance, tool use and human-robot collaboration, including cooperative interactions between humans and robots.
Professor Sethu Vijayakumar, director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and personal chair in robotics at the University of Edinburgh, said the work on Valkyrie helped advance data-driven approaches to robot planning and control.
“It was a gamble to invest so heavily in humanoids research back in the 2010s, when the scalability of the adaptive learning-based methods for robot planning and control we were advocating was not obvious,” Vijayakumar said. “In hindsight, this bold decision has contributed to the wave of data-driven humanoid robot research that is now widely pursued.”
Photo credit: University of Edinburgh
