PAL Robotics TALOS

A full-size research humanoid from Spain's PAL Robotics with torque control at every major joint.

TALOS is a bipedal research humanoid that Spain's PAL Robotics introduced around 2017. It stands about 1.75 m tall, weighs about 95 kg, and has 32 degrees of freedom across its body; PAL says every major joint carries a torque sensor, with four additional six-axis force sensors at the ankles and wrists, and the joints communicate over an EtherCAT bus (an industrial real-time communication protocol). Each arm can carry about 6 kg fully extended. Its selling point is torque control — commanding how much force a joint outputs, rather than just what angle to move to — which is why European labs commonly use it to validate model-based algorithms for whole-body control, contact planning, and trajectory optimization. Compared with today's reinforcement-learning-driven humanoids, TALOS functions more like a standard reference platform for force-control research.

ExampleThe French lab LAAS-CNRS has used TALOS for years of experiments, and its open-source dynamics and optimal-control libraries, such as Pinocchio and Crocoddyl, have been validated on it.

Also called

TALOS

Related

Humanoid Robot · Torque Control · Whole-Body Control · Joint Torque Sensor · Crocoddyl (Contact RObot COntrol by Differential DYnamic programming Library) · PAL Robotics TIAGo

Sources

TALOS | High-Performance Humanoid Robot (PAL Robotics)
TALOS: A new humanoid research platform targeted for industrial applications

As of

2026-09