Hugging Face has entered the robotics hardware market with Microduck, a $399 open-source biped robot designed to be trained with reinforcement learning at home.
The 25-centimeter robot was developed by Pollen Robotics, a French robotics startup acquired by Hugging Face. It packs 15 motors, a camera, LiDAR sensor, and two inertial measurement units into a compact form factor.
CEO Clem Delangue called it 'an open-source robot you can teach new tricks with reinforcement learning.' The SDK, MuJoCo simulation environment, and reinforcement learning training stack are all released under Apache 2.0 on GitHub.
At $399, Microduck is dramatically cheaper than comparable research robots. Pre-orders are open now, with shipping expected before Christmas.
Sources
- pollen-robotics.comMicroduck - A tiny biped robot you can teach new tricks — Pollen Robotics
- techcrunch.comHugging Face is selling a cute $399 open source duck robot — TechCrunch
- theregister.comHugging Face offers $399 robot duck — The Register
- interestingengineering.comTiny open-source robot duck can walk and learn — Interesting Engineering
