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A robotics company has showcased the jerky, uncanny-valley movements of its muscular humanoid robot in a horrifying new video.
Engineers at Clone Robotics, a startup founded in Poland in 2021, are building androids that look more humanlike than any other humanoid robot built to date and mimic human movement.
The new video, released by the company on April 9, shows their translucent-white skinned “Protoclone” robot hanging from the ceiling with its legs in a plié position, while its arms, head, and hands move eerily. The robot can be seen jerking around like a marionette, shrugging its shoulders, flexing its hands into fists, moving its arms up and down, and nodding its head.
“Meet Clone’s first musculoskeletal android: Protoclone, the most anatomically accurate robot in the world,” company representatives wrote in the caption of the video. “Based on a natural human skeleton, Protoclone is actuated with over 1,000 Myofibers, Clone’s proprietary artificial muscle technology.”
In humans and animals, muscles are attached to the skeleton via tendons, which are strong connective tissues. When a muscle contracts, the contraction pulls on the tendon, which pulls on the bones, moving them around a joint.
The Protoclone robot has a realistic human-like skeleton, Clone Robotics representatives say, and is equipped with the company’s artificial muscles called Myofibers, which are attached to the appropriate bones using artificial ligaments and connective tissues.
A humanlike android with humanlike movement
According to Clone Robotics’ website, the robot contains all 206 human bones made from “cheap and durable polymers.” The shoulder joints of the Clone, which connect the shoulder blade, collarbone, and upper arm bones, have a total of 20 degrees of freedom, which is the number of independent movements a joint can perform.
Hinge joints like the knee and elbow only have one degree of freedom each, while ball and socket joints like the hip have three degrees of freedom. Alongside the 26 degrees of freedom allowed by the hand, elbow, and wrist joints, Clone Robotics representatives claim that the Clone’s upper torso alone has 164 degrees of freedom.
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The Myofibers of the robot were first invented by the company in 2021, and are the “only artificial muscle in the world capable of achieving such a combination of weight, power density, speed, force-to-weight, and energy efficiency,” according to the Clone Robotics website. They also state that Myofibers allow “[contraction] faster than human, skeletal muscle fibers.”
The Protoclone also uses water-powered hydraulics to move its muscles, driven by a battery-powered electric pump.
“The Clone’s vascular system is the most sophisticated hydraulic powering system ever designed, with a 500 watt electric pump as compact as the human heart able to pump liquid,” the Clone Robotics site reads.
The android will also be equipped with hundreds of sensors, but will not be able to feel touch or pain — only where its limbs are in reference to the rest of its body. In total, there are four depth cameras in the skull for vision, 70 inertial sensors that provide joint-level proprioception (angles and velocities) and 320 pressure sensors for muscle-level force feedback.
The full-limbed Protoclone was first revealed in February of this year in a video that went viral for its creepy movements, and the company has also previously showcased the Clone Torso in 2024, and the Clone Hand in 2022, which could rotate its thumb and even catch a ball.
The Protoclone is a prototype of the company’s Clone Alpha android, which they claim will “walk naturally,” perform household chores like vacuuming, laundry and meal preparation, and even “shake hands with your friends” and spout “witty dialogue.”
