Alex

About Alex

Alex is a humanoid robot developed by Boardwalk Robotics, a company based in Florida that grew out of the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a lab known for its work on bipedal robots. Unlike full-body humanoids, Alex is an upper torso only: arms, hands, and a sensor head mounted on a stationary base or platform, with legs left to a later stage of the roadmap. It was introduced in 2024 with around nineteen degrees of freedom and a continuous payload of about 10 kilograms per system, using high-speed joints and cycloidal actuators designed in-house to move quickly while staying controllable. Boardwalk aims Alex at practical manipulation in manufacturing, logistics, food processing, maintenance, and aviation, and describes it as a commercial product rather than a research platform, though researchers can buy one. The company has been running early pilots and selecting partners ahead of a service-based model. Notably, Boardwalk was later acquired by Foundation Robotics, which renamed the robot Phantom and extended it toward mobile and defense-oriented use.