QDH (Quick Development Humanoid)

QDH stands for Quick Development Humanoid, and the name says it all: Apptronik of Austin built it as an internal development platform, never as a product. Legs and additional balance joints were added to the upper body known from the Astra so the team could test walking and stabilisation before designing its production humanoid. The first public description dates from January 2023.

The design relied on just three actuator types, all developed in-house, demonstrating that a full-size humanoid could be assembled from a small number of repeated modules. Today the Apptronik website describes QDH as an advanced upper-body platform that can be combined with different mobility bases, whereas trade press in January 2023 presented it as Astra with legs; both descriptions refer to the same development programme.

Its successor was the Apptronik Apollo, unveiled in August 2023, followed by the Apollo 2. The maker has not disclosed weight, height, degrees of freedom, lifting capacity, sensors or a price; pricing is formally on request and the status is discontinued. QDH remains relevant because it explains where Apollo's actuator architecture came from.