Kawasaki Kaleido Timeline

Kawasaki Robotics published a long-form blog post tracing the evolution of its humanoid programme from the 2015 first prototype through the eighth-generation Kaleido. The piece also documents the Friends sister-programme and the broader vision for teleoperated humanoid robots in disaster response.

Kawasaki upgrades both software and hardware to add real-time footstep adjustment — when balance is disturbed, the robot corrects its landing position rather than falling. The change sharply reduces fall risk and improves walking robustness.

Kawasaki introduces Friends, a slimmer, more approachable humanoid platform designed for tight indoor spaces and potential roles in caregiving and daily-life assistance. Friends adds display-based "eyes" for emotive expression and AI-driven conversational and gesture interaction — developed with Osaka University's Nagai Lab — and demonstrates Q&A with children at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation.

Kaleido completes its first fully untethered bipedal-walking demo from an onboard battery. Standing 178 cm and weighing 85 kg, the robot achieves stand-alone operation by replacing four external controllers with compact amplifiers and motor drivers, using magnesium-alloy structural components, and switching to in-house 3D-printed resin exterior panels.

Kawasaki publicly unveils Kaleido at the 2017 International Robot Exhibition (iREX 2017), demonstrating stand-up motions and pull-ups. The robot stands 175 cm and weighs 85 kg, on an external tethered power supply. According to Kawasaki, the team faced last-minute issues until the eve of the show before a final round of adjustments enabled a successful full opening-day demo.

Kawasaki, the company that built Japan's first industrial robot, begins humanoid development. Rather than directly copying human motion, the team extracts what they describe as the essential functional principles of human movement and recreates them with motors and mechanical structures. The first prototype suffers from insufficient leg rigidity (the knee mechanism in particular is vulnerable to torsion), producing unstable walking that the next generations gradually fix.