Clone Robotics Protoclone

A humanoid from Clone Robotics built with a musculoskeletal design, using thousands of artificial muscles instead of motors.

Protoclone is the “musculoskeletal humanoid” prototype V1 the startup Clone Robotics revealed publicly in February 2025. Rather than the usual route of motors plus reducers, it is built to follow human anatomy: a polymer skeleton modeled on the human body's 206 bones, moved by over 1,000 fluid-driven artificial muscles called Myofiber, said to give it more than 200 degrees of freedom; it carries about 500 sensors, including 4 depth cameras in the head, about 70 inertial units, and 320 pressure-sensing points, currently powered by a single 500 W electric pump. The public video shows it suspended and twitching its limbs, with no autonomous walking demonstrated yet. Its significance is exploring the “bio-inspired actuation” path: if artificial muscles can become fast and strong enough, a robot's compliance and appearance could get much closer to a human's, though control also becomes far harder.

ExampleIn Protoclone V1's release video, the robot, blank-faced and hung from a frame, twitches its limbs as its artificial muscles contract, sparking widespread “uncanny valley” discussion.

Also called

Protoclone, Protoclone V1

Related

Artificial Muscle · Bio-inspired Robot · Humanoid Robot · Pneumatic Artificial Muscle (McKibben Muscle) · Uncanny Valley · Clone Robotics

Sources

Watch creepy humanoid robot twitch and move with human-like skeleton - Interesting Engineering
Clone Robotics' Protoclone Has Over 1,000 Myofiber Artificial Muscles - TechEBlog

As of

2025-02