Virginia Tech TREC Lab · research humanoid
ESCHER
The Electric Series Compliant Humanoid for Emergency Response, a student-built, compliant-actuator biped that competed in the 2015 DRC Finals; IEEE Spectrum describes it as an upgrade of THOR.
- 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 Virginia Tech TREC Lab (Team VALOR).
Real-world use
No customers or deployments reported yet.
Maker
Virginia Tech TREC LabUniversity lab · Blacksburg, United StatesUS Office of Naval Research (SAFFiR); DARPA Robotics Challenge (Team VALOR)
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
- 1 news story 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.
- Hands
- simple
- Movement
- Walks on legs
- Actuators & motors
- Custom linear series elastic actuators in single and dual-actuator configurations, giving a fully force-controlled electric humanoid.
- AI & software
- Whole-body control framework for compliant walking on shifting terrain, with a high-level layer built on ROS and open-source packages.
- Other details
- ESCHER stands for Electric Series Compliant Humanoid for Emergency Response; it capped four years of Virginia Tech work after SAFFiR and THOR. At the DRC Finals it walked the 61 m loose-dirt course but Team VALOR scored 0 points (20th).
Named suppliers:ROS (Open Robotics)
Lineage
Every Virginia Tech TREC Lab (Team VALOR) humanoid in order.
Watch ESCHER
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
- Sold or delivered
- Never sold
- Where it is sold or used
- United States
News
The latest 1, newest first. Summaries are ours; tap through for the original.
- ESCHER competes at DRC Finals
Team VALOR's ESCHER competed at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals; the team's paper documents its hardware, control software and competition runs.
Team VALOR / Journal of Field Robotics
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 |  ESCHERVirginia Tech TREC Lab (Team VALOR) |  Surena IIIUniversity of Tehran, Center for Advanced Systems and Technologies (CAST)Same job: research · Both walk · Both past robots |  DRC-HUBOKAIST (Team KAIST) with Rainbow RoboticsSame job: research · Both walk · Both past robots |  Atlas (next generation)Boston DynamicsSame job: research · Both walk · Both past robots |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First shown | 2015-06 | 2015-11 | 2015-06-05 | 2016-02-23 |
| Status | Retired | Retired | Retired | Retired |
| Height | — | 190 cm | — | 175 cm |
| Weight | — | 98 kg | — | 82 kg |
| Joints | — | 31 | — | — |
| Speed | — | — | — | — |
| Payload | — | — | — | — |
| Battery | — | — | — | — |
| Price | — | — | — | — |
Sources
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