Georgia Institute of Technology · research humanoid
Simon
An upper-body social humanoid with a large expressive head and light-up ears, used to study learning from demonstration and natural turn-taking with people.
- Price
- —Not published
- Height
- —Not published
- Weight
- —Not published
- Payload
- —Not published
- Speed
- —Not published
- Battery
- —Not published
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Why it matters
A retired humanoid from Georgia Institute of Technology (Socially Intelligent Machines Lab).
Real-world use
No customers or deployments reported yet.
Timeline
- First shown
- 2008
- Released
- Not yet
Maker
Georgia Institute of TechnologyUniversity lab · founded 1885 · Atlanta, Georgia, United StatesPublic university; $1.53 billion R&D spending (NSF, 2024); $3.51 billion endowment (2025).
Public attention
A historic robot: no longer sold or in use, so it is not ranked against current humanoids.
- 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 2026-10-13; same method for every robot. How it is measured
What’s inside
The parts the company has talked about publicly.
- Movement
- Stationary
- Actuators & motors
- Series elastic actuators in compliant arms and hands; count not published.
- Hands
- Four-fingered compliant hands.
- Sensors & vision
- Camera eyes, Microsoft Kinect (later addition), microphone.
- Battery & power
- External power supply (tethered).
- AI & software
- Learning from demonstration; CADENCE turn-taking controller (HRI 2013); embodied active-learning queries using motion and simple speech.
- Other details
- Large expressive head with big eyes and LED ears that change colour with mood; uses gestures to get attention and can tell if it was noticed.
Named suppliers:Microsoft (Kinect)
From the maker
Simon is the only humanoid from Georgia Institute of Technology (Socially Intelligent Machines Lab) in the atlas.
Watch Simon
Made, sold and where
Unit counts are usually company figures; analysts often disagree.
- Price
- Not published
- How to get one
- No official buying page found
- Built
- 1 research robot
- Sold or delivered
- not sold
- Where it is sold or used
- Georgia Tech, Atlanta
News
The latest 2, newest first. Summaries are ours; tap through for the original.
- Volunteers build block models with Simon
The lab ran a study in which volunteers built block models together with Simon.
Georgia Tech Socially Intelligent Machines Lab - CBS shows Simon learning from people
CBS Morning News featured the lab's dialog and learning-from-demonstration demos with Simon.
Georgia Tech Socially Intelligent Machines Lab
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 | SimonGeorgia Institute of Technology (Socially Intelligent Machines Lab) |  Geminoid HI-1ATR and Osaka University (Hiroshi Ishiguro) with KokoroSame job: social · Both fixed in place · Both past robots | No public photo yetWe only show photos we're allowed to useBARTHOCBielefeld UniversitySame job: social · Both fixed in place · Both past robots |
|---|---|---|---|
| First shown | 2008 | 2006 | 2005 |
| Status | Retired | Retired | Retired |
| Height | — | 175 cm | — |
| Weight | — | 100 kg | — |
| Joints | — | — | — |
| Speed | — | — | — |
| Payload | — | — | — |
| Battery | — | — | — |
| Price | — | — | — |
Sources
Figures come from press coverage. Every link below backs something on this page.
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