Kepler Exploration Robotics (Shanghai Kepler Robot Co.) · general-purpose humanoid
Forerunner K1
Kepler's first full-size biped, shown at CES 2024 alongside the S1 and D1 versions of the same Forerunner body. It uses the company's own roller-screw actuators and 12-joint hands, and was later followed by the Forerunner K2 'Bumblebee'.
- Price
- $20,000Cheaper than 59%
- Height
- 178 cmTaller than 84%
- Weight
- 85 kgHeavier than 77%
- Payload
- —Not published
- Speed
- —Not published
- Battery
- —Not published
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Why it matters
A prototype humanoid from Kepler Exploration Robotics.
Real-world use
No customers or deployments reported yet.
Maker
Kepler Exploration Robotics (Shanghai Kepler Robot Co.)Company · founded 2023 · Shanghai, ChinaUndisclosed recent round (The Robot Report, 2025).
How it stacks up
Against other humanoids that publish the figure. Pick a measure.
Forerunner K1 is taller than 84% of the 305 other humanoids that publish a height. Bars show the 7 closest in date.
Forerunner K1 is heavier than 77% of the 277 other humanoids that publish a weight. Bars show the 7 closest in date.
Forerunner K1 has more joints than 67% of the 236 other humanoids that publish a joints. Bars show the 7 closest in date.
Forerunner K1 costs less than 59% of the 85 other humanoids that publish a price. Bars show the 7 closest in date.
Not published by the maker: speed, payload, battery.
What it has been shown doing
We checked public videos and press for Forerunner K1 and found no clear demo of the skills we track yet.
Public attention
How much public attention Forerunner K1 gets, from open data.
- No Wikipedia article of its own yet
- 2 news stories from reputable press listed on this page
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
The parts the company has talked about publicly.
- Movement
- Walks on legs · 40 joints
- Actuators & motors
- Kepler's own planetary roller-screw linear actuators in the limbs (8,000 N thrust) and rotary actuators in the waist and joints (200 Nm peak torque, 0.01-degree repeatability); up to 40 DoF across the body.
- Hands
- In-house dexterous hands with 12 DoF each, able to sense and gently grasp objects.
- Sensors & vision
- Vision, hearing and other perception handled by the NEBULA system, supporting visual recognition, visual SLAM and hand-eye coordination; individual sensors not listed.
- Compute
- On-board motherboard with a processor rated at 100 TOPS; a cloud multimodal model plus a smaller task model running on the robot.
- AI & software
- NEBULA perception/control system and Kepler OS developer platform with interfaces, reference projects and multi-robot coordination.
- Other details
- 178 cm and 85 kg; offered in K1, S1 and D1 versions of the same body for uses from research and education to production lines, inspection and rescue.
Lineage
Every Kepler Exploration Robotics humanoid in order.
Watch Forerunner K1
Made, sold and where
Unit counts are usually company figures; analysts often disagree.
- Price
- $20,000Kepler's January 2024 release gave an estimated retail price of US$20,000-30,000 (eeNews Europe reported about US$30,000 for international buyers).
- How to get one
- No official buying page found
- Built
- Mass production was planned for the second half of 2024 (shipping from Q3 2024 per eeNews)
- Sold or delivered
- no unit figures published
- Where it is sold or used
- China; Kepler said only a few parts such as the motherboard were sourced abroad
News
The latest 2, newest first. Summaries are ours; tap through for the original.
- Kepler details Forerunner after CES 2024
Kepler's release gave a US$20,000-30,000 estimated price, a 100 TOPS processor and plans for mass production in the second half of 2024.
PR Newswire Asia - Kepler humanoid pitched for a 3-day working week
eeNews reported 8,000 N roller-screw actuators, 12-DoF hands and about US$30,000 for international buyers.
eeNews Europe
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. How we choose
| Measure | Forerunner K1Kepler Exploration Robotics |  MATRIX-1Matrix RoboticsSame job: industrial · Both walk · Both in development · Similar size |  T1 (T1 Pro)Sichuan Tianlian Robot (TLIBOT, formerly Sichuan Fude Robot)Same job: industrial · Both walk · Both in development · Similar size |  CASBOT 01CASBOT (Beijing Zhongke Huiling Robot Technology)Same job: industrial · Both walk · Both in development · Similar size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First shown | 2024-01 | 2024-12-26 | 2024-04 | 2024-11-13 |
| Status | Prototype | Prototype | Prototype | Prototype |
| Height | 178 cm | 180 cm | 160 cm | 179 cm |
| Weight | 85 kg | 67 kg | 43 kg | 60 kg |
| Joints | 40 | — | 41 | 52 |
| Speed | — | 7.6 km/h | — | — |
| Payload | — | 10 kg | 10 kg | — |
| Battery | — | 5 h | — | 4 h |
| Price | $20,000 | — | — | — |
Sources
Figures come from the maker. Every link below backs something on this page.
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