CHARLI-L2, a humanoid robot developed as a research platform to study bipedal walking and autonomous behaviors for humanoid robots designed and built by Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa), demonstrates its capability to the tune of the Korean monster hit - "Gangnam Style".

As a physicist, I had a couple of questions before I watched the video below:

1. How many DOF or Degrees of Freedom does this robot have?
2. Recognition capabilities ( like sound/tune/beat recognition)?
3. How many actuators does it have?
4. The software embedded to it?

The reason why I wanted to get the details of the questions above because I was expecting that the movement should be near "human-like". Gone are those days where movements of the robots are limited to rough angular motion. Today we have a better technology to implement on these type of humanoid robots to get a better response/recognition.

CHARLI-L2 boosts its 25 DOF, 32 actuators, running a low-level object-oriented language -C++, and two (2) microphones in its head.

So what did I expect when I learned those information above?

Simple answer, I thought that CHARLI-L2 is another Asimo-like humanoid robot built by Honda, Japan. CHARLI-L2's performance compared to Asimo isn't that fancy but I see a big future for this humanoid robot. And I can tell that CHARLI-L2 is still due for further enhancement to perform complex tasks.

It has been reported that the US Navy plans to let CHARLI-L2 join its navy ship in the near future.

Watch CHARLI-L2 as it peforms Gangnam Style.

Full description of CHALI humanoid robots from RoMeLa youtube information:

The CHARLI series humanoid robot is developed as a research platform to study bipedal walking and autonomous behaviors for humanoid robots. It is designed to be ultra light weight (under 15 kgs) for safety and low cost. As the next generation of the CHARLI series humanoid robots, CHARLI-2 improves stability and speed in walking, intelligence and autonomy, and soccer playing skills. CHARLI-L2 is also designed to participate in the autonomous robot soccer competition, RoboCup, in the Adult size league.

CHARLI-2 implements an impressive active stabilization strategy based on sensory feedback (filtered IMU angles, gyro rate readings and proprioception information based on joint encoders.) Stabilizing torques at the ankle joints are applied based on this information, and successful ly rejects external disturbances. CHARLI-2 is honored "2011 Best Invention of the Year" by Time magazine, won the Louis Vuitton Best Humanoid Award (a.k.a. Louis Vuitton Cup) at RoboCup 2011, and won First Place in AdultSize league for autonomous soccer at both RoboCup 2011 and RoboCup 2012 among many awards.