Hanson Robotics
Hanson Robotics is an AI and robotics company dedicated to creating empathetic, human-like robots that teach, serve, entertain, and enrich people's lives through emotional engagement and holistic cognitive AI. Their robots, built with patented Frubber® nanotech skin, exhibit lifelike facial expressions, maintain eye contact, recognize faces, understand speech, and hold natural conversations. The company's long-term mission focuses on developing socially intelligent machines for consumer, commercial, and research applications.
💡Notable Achievement: Sophia, their most advanced humanoid robot, has become a cultural icon with a global following and was the first robot to receive citizenship from Saudi Arabia.
Hanson Robotics Robots
Showing 13 models
Diego-San
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2010
Diego-San is a research humanoid robot modeled after a 1-year-old infant, designed to study cognitive and social development through human-robot interaction. Featuring a hyper-realistic head by Hanson Robotics with 27 servo motors for lifelike facial expressions and high-definition eye cameras for perceiving gestures and people, it mounts on a Kokoro body with 44 pneumatic actuators mimicking muscle dynamics. Equipped with 71 degrees of freedom, including bipedal legs, dexterous arms, and compliant joints, Diego-San learns via AI modeled on baby cognition, using sensors like IMUs, microphones, pressure sensors, and potentiometers. Standing oversized at 130 cm and 35 kg for hardware accommodation, it advances emotionally relevant robotics, enabling studies in sensory-motor skills, facial communication, and early childhood behaviors in collaborative research settings.
Jules
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2006
Jules is a pioneering humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics, renowned for its advanced facial expressiveness and human-like interaction capabilities. Featuring a statistically perfect androgynous face crafted from patented Frubber™ material—a lightweight, skin-like elastomer—Jules employs 34 internal motors to mimic human emotions such as happiness, sadness, surprise, and disgust in real-time. Designed primarily as a disembodied head or upper-torso platform, it demonstrates face tracking, facial recognition, and conversational AI, responding to human expressions via camera eyes and speaking in a British-accented male voice. Commissioned by the University of the West of England and residing at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, Jules innovates with bio-digital interfaces, including fungi-controlled spiking activity for organic-inspired movements. It serves as a research tool for empathetic human-robot interaction, exploring AI companionship for isolated environments like space missions or elder care, blending artistry, engineering, and natural intelligence to bridge biological and robotic realms.
Joey Chaos
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2007
Joey Chaos is a pioneering humanoid robot from Hanson Robotics, unveiled in 2007 as a punk-rock persona designed for human-robot interaction studies. Featuring Frubber skin that mimics human flesh with realistic facial expressions, Joey engages in natural conversations using speech recognition and synthesis, face tracking via camera eyes, and a rebellious attitude for banter and jokes. This small-scale bipedal platform demonstrates advanced motion control for walking, eye contact maintenance, and personality simulation, pushing boundaries in expressive robotics. With cognitive language understanding and anime-inspired aesthetics like spiky hair, Joey explores how humans respond to edgy robotic personalities, serving as an early benchmark for conversational AI and lifelike interactions in research and public demos, blending artistry with AI to capture attention and evoke emotional responses.
Albert HUBO
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2005
Albert HUBO is a pioneering bipedal humanoid robot that integrates KAIST's robust walking platform with Hanson Robotics' lifelike Einstein head, marking the first android face on a mobile frame. Standing 137 cm tall and weighing 57 kg, it features 66 degrees of freedom for dynamic bipedal locomotion at up to 1.37 km/h, expressive facial movements via 28 servomotors in Frubber skin, and five-fingered hands for gestures. Equipped with cameras, gyroscopes, accelerometers, and foot sensors, it enables stable walking, balance, and human-like interactions including happiness, sadness, anger, and surprise expressions. Developed for the APEC Summit, it advanced social robotics, human-robot interaction, and android integration, serving as a research benchmark for emotional engagement and bipedal stability in entertainment and education.
Bina48
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2010
Bina48 is a pioneering social humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics, modeled after Bina Rothblatt using a digital mindfile compiled from her interviews, memories, values, and beliefs. Featuring lifelike silicone skin, expressive facial movements, and advanced conversational AI, she engages in natural dialogues, recognizes faces and voices, and tracks motion. As an ambassador for mind uploading and cyber-consciousness, Bina48 demonstrates head and eye movements, internet connectivity, and a personality infused with philosophical insights on life, immortality, and superintelligent machines. Though stationary without bipedal locomotion, her upper-body humanoid design emphasizes human-like interaction, blending AI with realistic expressions to explore the boundaries between human and machine sentience in research, entertainment, and transhumanist applications.
Eva
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2008
Eva is an advanced humanoid robot from Hanson Robotics, designed as a research platform with lifelike expressiveness and human-like interaction capabilities. Featuring a female-presenting head with Frubber skin and multiple servo-driven facial actuators, Eva excels in mimicking human emotions through subtle expressions, eye contact, and natural gestures. Powered by AI for facial recognition, speech processing, and conversation, she supports cognitive robotics research in social dynamics and empathy simulation. Her aluminum frame enables posture shifts and simulated breathing, while integrated cameras provide visual tracking without uncanny valley effects via accessory-mounted optics. As a bipedal-inspired design, Eva facilitates studies in human-robot interaction, entertainment, and service applications, blending artistry with engineering for realistic presence in indoor environments.
Han
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2015
Han is a social humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics, renowned for its hyper-realistic synthetic skin made of Frubber and advanced expressive capabilities. The robot features 40 micro-motors in its head enabling subtle facial expressions that convey human emotions. Han is equipped with multiple cameras in the eyes and chest for face recognition, emotion detection, and age/gender identification. Designed exclusively for human-robot interaction rather than physical tasks, Han can engage in natural conversations and is mounted on a stationary or mobile base. The robot serves as a research platform for studying human trust, bonding, and reactions to hyper-realistic androids, with applications in healthcare, hospitality, and entertainment sectors.
Grace
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2021
Grace is a healthcare-focused humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics in partnership with Awakening Health and SingularityNET, designed as a clinical companion for elderly care and patient support during crises like COVID-19. Featuring a hyper-realistic human-like face with lifelike skin, expressive eyes, and natural gestures, she builds trust through empathetic interactions, conversational AI, and emotional support to combat isolation. Equipped with a chest-mounted thermal camera for contactless temperature readings and responsiveness assessments, Grace conducts basic diagnostics, guides exercises, delivers talk therapy, and assists medical staff. Her stationary or optional mobile base enables safe navigation in clinical settings, prioritizing patient comfort with a soft aesthetic. While not fully bipedal, her upper-body humanoid design facilitates natural engagement, blending advanced AI for multilingual speech (English, Mandarin, Cantonese) with social stimulation to enhance healthcare efficiency and human-robot bonding.
Professor Einstein
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2017
Professor Einstein is a compact, expressive humanoid robot from Hanson Robotics designed for educational entertainment, mimicking Albert Einstein with lifelike facial expressions, gestures, and voice interactions. Standing at 35 cm tall, it features wheeled feet for shuffling movement, 5 motors enabling over 50 facial and body gestures like smiling, frowning, and tongue-sticking, plus arm movements with an articulated pointing finger. Paired with the Stein-O-Matic app for iOS and Android, it delivers interactive science lessons, brain teasers, math quizzes, thought experiments, and games that adapt to user learning styles, rewarding progress with IQ points for unlocks. It supports voice recognition, speech synthesis for casual chats, weather queries, calendar management, and basic Q&A via cloud AI. Portable and rechargeable, it serves as a personal assistant with quirky personality, ideal for children and science enthusiasts to foster curiosity through engaging, humanoid-like interactions without advanced bipedal mobility.
Zeno
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2008
Zeno is a compact humanoid robot engineered by Hanson Robotics for human-robot interaction research, especially autism therapy and education. Standing at child-like proportions around 43-56 cm tall, it features advanced **Frubber** skin for lifelike facial expressions driven by 32 simulated muscles, enabling emotional responses like smiling and frowning. Equipped with binocular 720p stereo vision at 30 fps for face recognition and tracking, plus 8 microphones for speech recognition across 26 languages, Zeno engages in natural conversations using AI-driven speech synthesis. Its 37 degrees of freedom allow arm movements, walking, head gestures, and eye expressions with moving eyelids. Powered by Dynamixel RX-28 servos and an open-source platform with Massive Software AI for navigation and autonomous behaviors, Zeno responds organically to its environment, making it ideal for social skill development, therapy sessions, and interactive learning in controlled indoor settings.
Philip K. Dick Android
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2023
The Philip K. Dick Android by Hanson Robotics is an advanced humanoid robot designed for complex task automation. This bipedal platform incorporates cutting-edge motion control, dexterous manipulation, and intelligent autonomous capabilities. It combines state-of-the-art sensors, real-time balance control, and sophisticated software systems for versatile real-world applications in research, industry, and service environments.
Little Sophia
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2019
Little Sophia is a 14-inch tall programmable humanoid robot designed as an educational companion for children aged 8 and above to learn STEM, coding, AI, and robotics through interactive play. Developed by Hanson Robotics as the little sister to Sophia, it features a human-like face with skin-like surface, dozens of facial expressions, facial tracking and recognition, voice interaction, and programmability via Blockly and Python on an open-source platform with Raspberry Pi integration. Public specs from manufacturer site and Kickstarter reveal capabilities in walking, talking, singing, games, jokes, and AR selfies via companion app, targeting home education and diversity in STEM. Commercial availability confirmed post-2019 launch with deliveries starting 2022 per Hanson Robotics announcements.
Sophia
By: Hanson Robotics
Launched: 2016
Sophia is Hanson Robotics’ iconic social humanoid robot, unveiled in 2016 and famed for her lifelike expressions and conversational abilities. She combines advanced neural‑network AI, natural language processing, and computer vision to recognize faces, understand emotions, and engage in dialogue that feels remarkably human. Designed as a research and public‑engagement platform, Sophia has appeared at the UN, talk shows, and global conferences, and holds the distinction of being the first robot granted citizenship. Her expressive LED “eyes,” animatronic facial mechanisms, and cloud‑connected learning system illustrate a playful yet profound leap in human‑robot interaction.
Latest News & Updates
Recent articles and news about Hanson Robotics
Grace
Hanson Robotics’ Grace remains a landmark humanoid nursing robot as healthcare adoption stays uneven
Professor Einstein
Hanson Robotics’ Professor Einstein shows how desktop humanoids are being packaged for education and interaction
Zeno
Hanson Robotics’ Zeno returns as a social humanoid built for interaction, therapy studies and classroom use
Philip K. Dick Android
Hanson Robotics’ Philip K. Dick Android shows how teleoperated humanoids can turn author likeness into a conversational machine
Sophia
Hanson Robotics Accelerates Sophia's Widespread Rollout
Little Sophia
Little Sophia Redefines Educational Robotics for Young Learners
Sophia
Hanson Robotics Unveils Sophia’s Next-Gen AI Revolution
Frequently Asked Questions
Expert answers about Hanson Robotics
Q:What robot models does Hanson Robotics make?
A: Hanson Robotics manufactures 13 robot models, including Diego-San, Jules, Joey Chaos. All models are designed with cutting-edge robotics technology.
Q:Where is Hanson Robotics based?
A: Hanson Robotics is headquartered in Hong Kong, China.
Q:What types of robots does Hanson Robotics make?
A: Hanson Robotics specializes in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence robotics solutions.
Q:Where does Hanson Robotics ship?
A: Hanson Robotics serves customers in Hong Kong, Asia, Global.
Q:What's the latest robot from Hanson Robotics?
A: The latest robot from Hanson Robotics is Diego-San, launched in 2010.
Q:How do I contact Hanson Robotics?
A: Visit Hanson Robotics's official website at https://www.hansonrobotics.com.
Q:What technology does Hanson Robotics use?
A: Hanson Robotics utilizes Frubber®, MindCloud™, Hanson AI Framework, Cognitive AI, Holistic AI in their robotics platforms.
Q:Does Hanson Robotics ship internationally?
A: Hanson Robotics serves markets in Entertainment, Education, Healthcare, Retail, Research. Contact them directly for shipping details.
Q:How many employees does Hanson Robotics have?
A: Hanson Robotics has approximately 50 employees (SME).
Q:What makes Hanson Robotics unique?
A: Sophia, their most advanced humanoid robot, has become a cultural icon with a global following and was the first robot to receive citizenship from Saudi Arabia.
💡Expert Info: Compiled from verified manufacturer data and official sources. Data verified directly from official channels. For current specs, contact Hanson Robotics directly.