Asimov 1: Open-Source Humanoid Robot

TL;DR

Menlo Research ships Asimov 1 as a fully open-source humanoid robot: a 1.2 m, 35 kg biped with 25 actuated DOF, released under CERN-OHL-S-2.0 hardware / GPL-2.0 software licenses. The GitHub repo includes mechanical CAD, electrical schematics + PCB files, a MuJoCo simulation model, and a fabrication manifest that can be diff-checked against the CAD; a $20,000 DIY kit and a self-source path (with BOM) are both supported. Positioned for research, data collection, and live demo use — with sim-to-real training as an explicit design target. First-of-its-kind at this fidelity: prior open humanoid releases (Microduck, Aero Hand) have been sub-1 kg or dexterous-hand scale; Asimov is a real load-bearing biped (5 kg per arm rated, 15 kg peak).

Key claims

Full-body humanoid open-hardware release covering mechanical CAD (7 subassemblies), electrical wiring harness, electrical schematics + PCB files, MuJoCo simulation model, and onboard software — all in one repo [§Roadmap].
Dual-license split: hardware under CERN-OHL-S-2.0 (strong reciprocity), software under GPL-2.0 [§Header].
25 actuated DOF: 6 DOF × 2 legs, 5 DOF × 2 arms (shoulder pitch/roll/yaw + elbow + wrist yaw), 1 DOF waist yaw, 2 DOF neck (yaw + pitch) [§Specifications].
Rated load 5 kg per arm; peak 15 kg per arm on bicep curl / front raise, 18 kg on lateral raise [§Specifications, second table].
Split-compute onboard: Raspberry Pi 5 for media + network, Radxa CM5 for motion control, over 5 CAN buses at 1 Mbps + 1 at 500 kbps [§Specifications].
Two acquisition paths: $20K DIY Kit (unassembled BOM + power + spares, no tools/hands) or self-source via the repo-local mechanical/FABRICATION_MANIFEST.csv cross-referenced against the online BOM [§Build your own Asimov].
CAD-derived fabrication manifest is programmatically checkable: python3 scripts/generate_fabrication_manifest.py --check [§Fabrication manifest].
Structural materials are 7075 aluminium and MJF PA12 nylon; sensors include stereo microphone array, 2MP monocular camera, 6-DOF IMU, motor joint states [§Specifications].
Not yet shipped: Asimov Edge and locomotion policy (both on roadmap) [§Roadmap] — pure hardware release for now, no bundled trained policy.

Method

Asimov 1 is a hardware artifact rather than a model, so the “method” is the release shape: a single GitHub repository (menloresearch/asimov-1) bundles mechanical CAD subassemblies, an electrical wiring harness with schematics and PCB files, a MuJoCo simulation model, and onboard software into one Git-tracked, license-tagged, script-checkable package. Sim-to-real is called out as a first-class use case (“train a policy in simulation and run the exact same one on the robot”), which is what the paired MuJoCo model in the repo enables. Distribution is two-track: a $20,000 DIY kit ships the unassembled BOM with power/cabling/spares (excluding tools and hands), and self-sourcing is supported end-to-end via a fabrication manifest that is derived from the CAD and can be checked with a repo-local Python script — closing the reproducibility gap that typically opens between “here’s our CAD” and “here’s exactly what you need to order to build one.”

Results

Physical specs (from the repo README):

Height 1.2 m, weight 35 kg, 25 actuated DOF [§Specifications].
Load capacity: rated 5 kg on squat / bicep curl / front raise, 6 kg on lateral raise; peak 15 kg bicep curl / front raise, 18 kg lateral raise per arm [§Specifications second table].
Onboard: RPi 5 + Radxa CM5, 5× 1 Mbps CAN + 1× 500 Mbps CAN [§Specifications].
Materials: 7075 aluminium + MJF PA12 nylon [§Specifications].
Sensors: 2MP monocular camera, stereo mic array, 6-DOF IMU, motor joint states; explicitly not included in the DIY kit: LiDAR, 360 cam, 4G/5G modules.

No policy benchmarks or task-success metrics are reported — this is a hardware release, and the locomotion policy is still on the roadmap.

Why it’s interesting

Extends the Open foundation-model releases cluster along a dimension it has been slowly filling in: full-body robot hardware as an open-release primitive. Prior filed hardware-side entries in that cluster have been narrower — Aero Hand Open: low-cost, open-source, lightweight, anthropomorphic dexterous hand opens a dexterous hand at hand scale, Microduck RL — RL training environments for a ~800 g open-source bipedal robot opens a sub-1 kg bipedal robot, and Cyclo — ROBOTIS Open-Source Modular Physical AI Framework opens a modular framework and OpenMANIPULATOR arm. Asimov 1 is the first filed load-bearing humanoid release at 35 kg / 1.2 m with production-grade actuators and a real payload envelope, sitting at the far end of that hardware-open axis. Complements Humanity's Last Machine: A Deep Dive on Humanoid Hardware‘s survey of the humanoid-hardware supply chain by putting a concrete, replicable BOM behind the analysis — and its explicit sim-to-real story (“train a policy in sim and run the exact same one on the robot”) makes it a plausible target hardware platform for the VLA Models and World Foundation Models recipes the wiki tracks on the policy side.