DB

Dynamic Brain

A 1.85 m, 80 kg hydraulic humanoid built by SARCOS for Mitsuo Kawato's project (begun October 1996), with 30 degrees of freedom, a head with four cameras and a gyro 'inner ear', and palms without fingers. It was mounted at the pelvis so research could focus on upper-body movement; the earliest dated description found is a 2000 IEEE paper.

Price: —Not published
Height: 185 cmTaller than 94%
Weight: 80 kgHeavier than 73%
Payload: —Not published
Speed: —Not published
Battery: —Not published

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Why it matters

A hydraulic full-body humanoid used to study how the brain learns movement; it learned a folk dance and tai chi by watching people and juggled balls.

Real-world use

No customers or deployments reported yet.

Timeline

First shown: 2000
Released: Not yet

Earliest dated description found: IEEE Intelligent Systems 2000 paper (project started Oct 1996; TIME later said it was completed in 2001)

Maker

Osaka UniversityUniversity lab · Suita, Osaka, Japan

University research lab; ERICA was developed within the JST ERATO Ishiguro Symbiotic Human-Robot Interaction Project.

How it stacks up

Against other humanoids that publish the figure. Pick a measure.

DB (Dynamic Brain) is taller than 94% of the 305 other humanoids that publish a height. Bars show the 7 closest in date.

Height 185 cm 34 cm213 cm #18 of 306 · taller than 94%

Not published by the maker: speed, payload, battery, price.

Public attention

A historic robot: no longer sold or in use, so it is not ranked against current humanoids.

No Wikipedia article of its own yet
No recent press stories listed yet

Measures how much people read and write about a robot, not how good it is. Measured 2026-10-14; same method for every robot. How it is measured

What’s inside

No component details published yet.

Hands: none
Movement: Stationary · 30 joints

Lineage

Every ATR and JST ERATO Kawato Dynamic Brain Project, hardware by SARCOS humanoid in order.

Made, sold and where

No production or sales figures published yet.

Price: Not published
How to get one: No official buying page found

Side by side with its peers

Picked by the same rules for every humanoid: another maker’s robot that moves the same way, is at the same stage and does at least one of the same main jobs, first shown within two years. Closer size and price rank higher. Few robots match closely, so these are the nearest matches. How we choose

Full comparison

Measure	DB (Dynamic Brain)ATR and JST ERATO Kawato Dynamic Brain Project, hardware by SARCOS	KentaUniversity of Tokyo JSK Lab (Ikuo Mizuuchi, Masayuki Inaba, Hirochika Inoue)Same job: research · Both fixed in place · Both past robots	No public photo yetWe only show photos we're allowed to useSaikaUniversity of Tokyo (Inoue-Inaba lab)Same job: research · Both fixed in place · Both past robots	KotaroUniversity of Tokyo JSK Lab (Ikuo Mizuuchi, Masayuki Inaba)Same job: research · Both fixed in place · Both past robots
First shown	2000	2001	1996	2005
Status	Retired	Retired	Retired	Retired
Height	185 cm	—	—	133 cm
Weight	80 kg	—	8 kg	20 kg
Joints	30	—	—	91
Speed	—	—	—	—
Payload	—	—	—	—
Battery	—	—	—	—
Price	—	—	—	—

Sources

Figures come from a published paper. Every link below backs something on this page.

University of Edinburgh (author copy) Using Humanoid Robots to Study Human Behavior (IEEE Intelligent Systems, 2000) PubMed Central Brain controlled robots (Kawato, HFSP Journal 2008) MIT Technology Review (2005) What We Can Learn from Robots Logo: ATR, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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