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KAIST Hubo Lab (Humanoid Robot Research Center)

Research Institute

KAIST humanoid research centre that built HUBO and won the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge with DRC-HUBO+; it now develops a 3.25 m/s next-gen humanoid.

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Company Overview

Hubo Lab, formally the Humanoid Robot Research Center at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) in Daejeon, South Korea, is the group that created the HUBO family of biped humanoids. It was founded and long led by Professor Jun-Ho Oh of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Since February 2020 the centre has been directed by Professor Hae-Won Park of the same department, who also runs the Dynamic Robot Control and Design Laboratory (DRCD), which works on optimisation-based control, model predictive control and the design of legged robots.

HUBO lineage. The lab developed HUBO over roughly a decade. HUBO2 was built in 2009, and in 2014 the lab used its basic layout for DRC-HUBO+, built for the DARPA Robotics Challenge. DRC-HUBO+ is 173 cm tall, weighs 82 kg and has 32 degrees of freedom driven by 36 BLDC motors. An air-cooling system gives it three to four times the joint power of HUBO2. It also has longer limbs, an aluminium outer shell, a LADAR sensor and vision cameras in the head, and force-torque and fibre-optic gyro sensors for walking. It can also switch into a wheeled mobile-robot mode. At the DRC Finals in Pomona, California, on 5 and 6 June 2015, Team KAIST, led by Oh with Professor In-So Kweon and engineers from the KAIST spin-off Rainbow, finished all eight tasks (driving a vehicle, opening a door, turning a valve, drilling a wall, crossing rubble, climbing stairs and others) in 44 minutes 28 seconds. That beat IHMC (50:26) and Carnegie Mellon's TARTAN Rescue (55:15), and the team won the US$2 million first prize ahead of 24 teams from six countries. The robots themselves were built by Rainbow, the company now known as Rainbow Robotics.

Research center. In January 2017 KAIST opened the Humanoid Robot Research Center at the KAIST Institute with 15 billion won of funding over five years, backed by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Its aims were to advance humanoid technology and train researchers, with planned work on high-efficiency electric drives, hydraulic systems, object-recognition intelligence and modular, open software.

Next-generation humanoid. In September 2025 Park's team unveiled the lower body of a new humanoid designed and built in house. The finished robot is expected to be about 165 cm tall and weigh about 75 kg. The legs reached 3.25 m/s on flat ground (aiming for 4 m/s), stepped over 30 cm obstacles (aiming for gaps over 40 cm) and showed human-like gaits such as duck walking and a moonwalk. The team also built a single-legged hopping robot that balances while jumping repeatedly and can do 360-degree somersaults. The learning-based control work was presented at CoRL 2025 and the hardware at Humanoids 2025. The next steps are a full upper body that can carry heavy objects, turn valves, cranks and door handles, push carts while walking and climb ladders for industrial sites. In October 2026, at the Physical AI Korea 2026 event on the KAIST campus, the robot did a moonwalk and moved and lifted letter-shaped blocks with its legs, torso and both hands.

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DRC-HUBO+ humanoid robot

Biped humanoid that can convert to a wheeled mode and won the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals, completing all eight disaster-response tasks in 44:28.

HUBO2 humanoid robot

Second-generation HUBO biped humanoid from KAIST whose basic configuration was the base for DRC-HUBO+.

Next-generation KAIST humanoid (lower body)

In-house humanoid legs unveiled in 2025 that run at 3.25 m/s, step over 30 cm obstacles and moonwalk; a full-body version for industrial sites is planned.

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Contact KAIST Hubo Lab (Humanoid Robot Research Center)

WEBSITE

https://hubolab.kaist.ac.kr

HEADQUARTERS

291 Daehak-ro
KAIST
Daejeon , Daejeon  34141

Korea, Republic of (South)

Company Facts

Founded

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Primary Role

Research Institute

Company Size

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Primary Region

Asia-Pacific

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Funding Stage

Grant / Non-profit

Funding Total

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