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UT Austin

Birthplace of Apptronik and NASA Valkyrie humanoid heritage

The University of Texas at Austin's Human Centered Robotics Lab is the origin of humanoid startup Apptronik and carries a direct lineage from NASA's Valkyrie humanoid robot program.

UT Austin's Human Centered Robotics Lab has focused on creating robots that work safely alongside people, with research spanning whole-body control, series elastic actuation, and human-robot teaming. The lab played a central role in developing NASA's Valkyrie humanoid, one of the most capable full-size humanoid platforms built for disaster-response scenarios. This work directly gave rise to Apptronik, a commercial humanoid company founded by lab alumni. UT Austin continues to advance the control theory and hardware design principles that underpin practical humanoid deployment.