Meet Kenshiro: Japan's creepy boy robot with an aluminum skeleton and 160 muscles

Watch the most realistic humanoid machine in action

Kenshiro
(Image credit: YouTube)

Say hello to Kenshiro, a 5'2" humanoid robot that moves with creepy precision. While other human-like machines such as DARPA's Petman plod along clumsily as if they could fall at any time, Kenshiro's individual arms, legs, and spine can bend and rotate with unnerving realism. The key is in his advanced musculoskeletal structure, which researchers at Tokyo University's JSK Lab have been refining since 2001, starting first with Kenshiro's predecessor, Kenta.

Biomimicry on this detailed a scale, however, is no easy job. "The muscles, bone structure, and spine are meant to work and flex the ways ours do," says Devin Coldewey at NBC News. That means "striking a balance between weight, power, and speed" of Kenshiro's individual components, in much the same way the relative weight of our bones and other parts are crucial for everyday functioning.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Don't worry, though. The human body contains around 640 muscles, give or take a few, so Kenshiro still has a long way to go before he can move around with the full range of motion that comes naturally to most living, breathing humans. And even if this Astro Boy in the making somehow becomes self-aware and feels compelled to destroy humankind, he'll still have a pretty tough time trying to chase anyone down. (Via Gizmag, LiveScience)

Chris Gayomali is the science and technology editor for TheWeek.com. Previously, he was a tech reporter at TIME. His work has also appeared in Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic, among other places. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.