Hardware & control
Xumanoid
Xumanoid is a coined term used by xumanoids.com for a humanoid robot intended to understand context, learn from experience and work alongside people. It expresses an aspiration for humanlike form and collaborative behaviour, rather than an established technical class or verified level of capability.
Also known as: xumanoids
Updated
A coined term with an explicit purpose
Xumanoids uses the plural xumanoids for “Humanoid robots that understand context, learn from experience, and work alongside people.” Its broader description centres on machines in human form that expand people's abilities and serve them with care. The site's own glossary explicitly identifies the word as a coined label, rather than a robotics standard or certification.
The established term humanoid robot describes body form. Xumanoid adds an intended relationship with people: assistance and collaboration. This makes it useful as a statement of design purpose, provided its meaning is attributed and its aspirations remain distinct from demonstrated performance.
What the label leaves to be demonstrated
Calling a machine a xumanoid does not establish autonomy, general intelligence, safety or an ability to care in the human emotional sense. Context understanding needs to be evaluated on specific tasks and operating conditions. Collaboration needs evidence about how people communicate with the robot, supervise it and intervene.
“Learns from experience” also leaves the learning process unspecified. Robot learning can involve training on previously collected experience; the phrase alone does not establish continuous learning during deployment, or learning that happens onboard the robot.
The article Xumanoid versus humanoid develops the argument for this new word alongside the history and continuing usefulness of the established terminology.
Sources
Related terms
Hardware & control
Humanoid robot
A humanoid robot is a robot whose body is modelled on the human form, typically with a torso, head and limbs, so it can move through human spaces or use human-scale tools and interfaces. The term describes morphology, not intelligence or autonomy; wheeled, partial-body and simplified-hand designs are also sometimes classed as humanoids, so the robot's actual configuration should be stated.
Models & learning
Embodied AI
Embodied AI is artificial intelligence that perceives and acts through a body in an environment, so its actions change the observations available to it next. The body may be a physical robot or, in common research usage, an agent situated in a persistent simulated world. Embodied AI emphasises the coupled loop between morphology, perception, action, learning, and the environment.
Data & collection
Human–robot interaction
Human–robot interaction is the exchange of information and actions between people and robots while performing a task, and the field that studies how such systems are designed and evaluated. It includes remote operation, supervision, collaboration, physical interaction and social communication rather than only face-to-face conversation.
Models & learning
Robot learning
Robot learning is the use of data and machine-learning methods to acquire or improve robot perception, prediction, planning or control. A robot may learn from demonstrations, rewards, direct interaction, simulation or previously collected datasets. The field includes reinforcement learning and imitation learning, but neither term is a synonym for robot learning as a whole.
Hardware & control
Autonomy
Robot autonomy is the ability to perform an intended task from the robot’s current state and sensor information without human intervention during that task. Autonomy is contextual and can differ by function, environment and operating phase; it is not a single permanent capability level for the whole robot.
Data & collection
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of humanlike characteristics, motivations, intentions or emotions to nonhuman agents or objects. In robotics, it can involve interpreting a machine as having humanlike mental states; this inference is distinct from describing a robot's humanlike body shape.