Tien Kung 3.0 Released

Humanoid robots are built to move and work in spaces made for people, and X-Humanoid said on February 10 it released Tien Kung 3.0 as a full-size platform other developers can build on. (x-humanoid.com) (prnewswire.com) X-Humanoid, formally the Beijing Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics, said the new machine is 169 centimeters tall, weighs 62 kilograms, and has 43 degrees of freedom, the joints and axes that let a robot bend, turn, and balance. The company said it launched the platform in Beijing on February 10 and framed it around “openness and usability.” (thepaper.cn) (prnewswire.com) Open source in robotics usually means publishing code, tools, and interfaces so outside teams can test ideas without rebuilding the whole machine from scratch. X-Humanoid’s Tien Kung open-plan page says it offers software development kits and documentation, and its public GitHub repository includes a locomotion-control stack for the robot built on Isaac Lab. (x-humanoid.com) (github.com) That matters because humanoid robotics is still split across incompatible hardware connectors, software protocols, and simulation tools. X-Humanoid said Tien Kung 3.0 was designed to lower those integration costs with expansion interfaces, documentation, toolchains, and a low-code development environment. (prnewswire.com) (thepaper.cn) Mobility is the hard part because a humanoid has to stay upright while shifting weight, reacting to contact, and stepping over uneven ground. X-Humanoid said Tien Kung 3.0 combines high-torque joints with whole-body control and tactile interaction, so it can handle tasks like climbing, landing with hand support, and crossing obstacles about 1 meter high. (prnewswire.com) (thepaper.cn) The company has tried to show that in public tests, not just lab demos. On April 18, Tien Kung 3.0 completed the Beijing Yizhuang Robot Warrior Challenge fully autonomously, and X-Humanoid said it finished tasks including pendulum traversal, barrier breaching, and obstacle clearance with the highest overall score. (prnewswire.com) X-Humanoid also used the release to push a broader software stack it calls Wise KaiWu, which it describes as the robot’s “brain” and “cerebellum” for perception, planning, control, and recovery. The company said that stack is meant to reduce the gap between simulation and real-world deployment, a persistent problem in robotics when behaviors that work in software fail on physical machines. (prnewswire.com 1) (prnewswire.com 2) (github.com) The pitch is aimed at universities, research labs, and smaller robotics companies that want a humanoid base without designing every actuator, controller, and interface themselves. X-Humanoid said outside university teams used its open interfaces to do additional development during the April competition, and the company’s site says it has already open-sourced pieces including the robot body, motion-control framework, training toolchain, and datasets. (prnewswire.com) (thepaper.cn) The open question is how much of a humanoid platform needs to be shared before outside developers can move fast on it. Tien Kung 3.0 gives them a clearer starting point: a full-size machine, published tools, and a recent public mobility demo instead of a closed prototype. (x-humanoid.com) (github.com) (prnewswire.com)