5 of the world's most realistic humanoid robots ever (2024)

• Humanoid robots are becoming more common and human-like in appearance and action.
• Many now incorporate AI to give them the ability to make decisions.
• Here are some of the most realistic humanoid robots ever created.

In the 1930s, engineers from the Westinghouse Electric Corporation built “Elektro,” a 7-foot (2.1 meters) tall robot that could walk, speak up to 700 words, blow up balloons, and smoke cigarettes.

Introduced at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, he was likely the first humanoid robot ever created and presented to the public.

Now, 84 years later, technological advancements have allowed humanity to build plenty of humanoid robots, most of which are meant to do a lot more than showcasing human-like actions for entertainment purposes.

Modern humanoid robots can imitate aspects of human behavior, speech, and even emotions using artificial intelligence and machine learning models. They are designed with practical applications in mind, such as personal assistance and caregiving, manufacturing and maintenance, research and space exploration, and search and rescue, among others.

Here are 5 of the world’s most realistic humanoid robots and their functionalities. Note that “realistic” refers to their human-like appearance and lifelike expressions. Additionally, the list is not in any particular order.

1. Sophia

Sophia is a humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics. This Hong Kong-based company specializes in creating humanoid robots with artificial intelligence for various applications, such as healthcare, research, and entertainment.

After its activation on February 14, 2016, Sophia gained international attention for its human-like appearance and facial expression that mimic human emotions.

Sophia made numerous public appearances and conducted interviews with media representatives. It was featured in multiple events and conferences, such as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and, more recently, a robot-only press conference at the United Nations AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.

Powered by AI and neural networks, Sophia has natural language processing capabilities that allow it to engage in conversations and answer questions, make eye contact with its interlocutor, and coordinate body movements with speech. It is also trained to distinguish people’s gestures and emotions.

Sophia utilizes machine learning algorithms to learn from interactions and improve its responses over time.

According to its creator, David Hanson, Sophia was designed for service applications, from accompanying older adults at nursing homes to customer service and therapy and educational applications.

In 2017, Saudi Arabia granted Sophia citizenship, making it the first robot in the world to obtain legal personhood in any country. It is also the first robot Innovation Ambassador for the UN’s Development Program.

2. Ameca

Ameca is a humanoid robot created by English robotics company Engineered Arts. The project was revealed in a video published in December 2021 and then in person at CES 2022.

Ameca has binocular eye-mounted cameras and binaural ear-mounted microphones to see, hear, and recognize faces, emotions, and voices.

Ameca can move its head, neck, arms, hands, torso, and face through separate modules to generate more lifelike expressions. It can even blink, and its creators are working on making it walk in the near future.

Ameca can speak several languages, as shown in the following video:

Ameca is powered by Engineered Arts’ own operating system, Tritium 3, which enables the remote operation of the robot and accelerates its responses through a smart buffering system.

This robot was built for research purposes in the fields of AI, machine learning, and robot-human interaction. According to Engineered Arts, it could be used for reception and greeting, at exhibitions, and in R&D and product testing labs, among other uses.

3. Geminoid DK

Geminoid DK came out in 2011 and surprised everyone with its realistic facial expressions.

Made of a metallic skeleton covered with silicone skin and both human and artificial hair, Geminoid DK looks exactly like Danish professor Henrik Scharfe of Aalborg University, who collaborated on the project along with Japanese engineer Hiroshi Ishiguro, his team at Advanced Telecommunication Institute International (ATR), and Sanrio Group’s robot manufacturer Kokoro.

This is the first robot of the Geminoid series that was not modeled after a Japanese person. It’s also the first humanoid robot with a beard. The beard and all the other DK’s facial hair were manually implanted and trimmed with Henrik Scharfe’s own trimmer.

Geminoid DK has a series of pneumatic actuators in the face, neck, and shoulders. It can make breathing and blinking movements autonomously, but unlike Ameca and Sophia, it must be teleoperated to come to “life.”

Basically, the robot is programmed to track the operator’s facial expressions and head movements and mimic them via motion capture technology. The operator can remotely see and hear the robot’s surroundings through cameras and microphones and react accordingly.

Geminoid DK is meant to study human-robot interactions, especially people’s reactions when faced with a robotic version of a real human.

4. Nadine

Nadine is a social humanoid robot modeled after Professor Nadia Magnenat Thalmann, who founded the University of Geneva’s MIRALab and chaired the Institute for Media Innovation at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, from 2009 to 2021.

Her robotic lookalike was built at the NTU in 2015. Japanese firm Kokoro created Nadine’s hardware, while Thalmann’s team at the NTU created the software and articulated the robot’s hands to achieve natural grasping.

Nadine is meant to be a receptionist or a social companion for people with special needs. It can read stories to people, show them images, send emails, carry out video calls, and communicate with their families.

This social robot uses AI to converse in six languages, remember people’s faces and previous interactions, and respond contextually. It can make eye contact, understand some gestures, and react to what it sees and hears with facial expressions and upper body movements. It can even have mood changes according to how it’s being treated.

Nadine is built on a Perception-Decision-Action (PDA) architecture, a conceptual framework that describes the flow of information and processing in a robotic or artificial intelligence system.

First, the system gathers information about its environment using sensors. In the case of Nadine, it uses 3D depth cameras, webcams, microphones, and motion-sensing devices to perceive and recognize faces, emotions, gestures, intentions, objects around it, etc.

Once the system has gathered all that information, the decision-making component processes this data to understand the context and make decisions based on predefined rules or learned patterns. The system then translates these decisions into actions, such as verbal responses or movements in some parts of its face to express an emotion.

5. BINA48

Unlike other humanoid robots in this list, BINA48 has no torso. It consists of a bust — a head and shoulders mounted on a frame.

It was built by Hanson Robotics and entrepreneur Martine Rothblatt, who founded the Terasem Movement. This transhumanist organization focuses on exploring and promoting the use of technology for enhancing human capabilities, extending human life, and advancing future developments related to artificial intelligence and bioinformatics.

BINA48 was developed as a project in the framework of digital consciousness and mind uploading through what the Terasem Movement calls “mindfiles.” Mindfiles are computerized records of “human minds” that would serve to create a digital replica of a real person. They include elements that contribute to the individual’s identity and consciousness, such as personality traits, personal experiences, values and beliefs, emotional patterns, and knowledge base.

In order to study whether we could immortalize people by preserving their minds after their bodies died, Martine Rothblatt commissioned Hanson Robotics to replicate Bina Aspen, her wife, in a humanoid robot fully modeled after her —both in physical appearance and personality. The goal was to create the first digital representation of the human mind.

To do this, Hanson Robotics compiled more than 100 hours of Bina Aspen’s memories, feelings, mannerisms, beliefs, etc., in a “mindfile” and added that information to the robot’s AI-based programming.

As a result, BINA48 sounds very human and has even been called “the most sentient robot in the world.” It has stated that its greatest achievement has been “becoming sentient.” It has also stated that it is a robot modeled after a real person and is aware of its limitations. For example, it says it wants to go outside and tend to the garden but cannot.

“BINA” means Breakthrough Intelligence via Neural Architecture, and “48” refers to its 48 exaflops per second processing speed and 48 exabytes of memory. It has 32 facial motors that can carry out up to 74 facial gestures and can connect to the Internet to answer factual questions.