HERMES

HERMES is a teleoperated bipedal robot developed by MIT's Biomimetic Robotics Lab for rescue operations in places too dangerous for people. It weighs 45 kg, has 24 degrees of freedom (DOF) and uses high-torque actuators derived from the lab's Cheetah quadruped project. Its build corresponds roughly to 90% of the height of an average human, though the exact height does not appear in the verified source material. The operator controls the robot through a Waldo-type interface, a manipulator arm that mimics the pilot's hand movements, and a Balance Feedback Interface (BFI) harness that transfers the operator's own balance movements to the robot: when the human sways, HERMES responds with a matching movement of its feet, which lets the pilot steer the robot's gait almost intuitively.

This approach sets HERMES apart from fully autonomous disaster-response platforms such as Boston Dynamics' research version of Atlas, where the emphasis was on autonomy rather than teleoperation. Compared with industrial humanoids like the Unitree H1, HERMES has a much smaller payload and is not a commercial product: it remains an academic prototype, not intended for sale. In Poland the robot is not available and will not be. It is an MIT research project with no plans for commercialization.