8 metres tall, weighs 125kg, and is one of three prototypes in the world. It was named after the Valkyries from Norse mythology, who were said to have led souls from Midgard (Earth) to Valhalla – the afterlife. Valkyrie was one of the most advanced humanoid robots in the world when it arrived at the University of Edinburgh in 2016.
The University of Edinburgh's Centre of Robotics has honed Valkyrie's capabilities over the last decade. Scientists at the university have spent the last decade improving Valkyrie's handling and walking capabilities, honing its sensors to help it traverse the harsh Martian environment through data and new ways to connect what the robot sees, so it can move accordingly. The specific improvements made to Valkyrie's sensors and capabilities during its time at the University of Edinburgh have not been detailed.
The research, by the university's Centre for Robotics, is a joint initiative with Heriot-Watt University and involved dozens of PhD students. It was supported by the Engineering Physical Sciences Research Council – a part of UK Research and Innovation. The Valkyrie robot has spent about a decade at the University of Edinburgh, where it has been upgraded and improved.
Students and staff are now saying their goodbyes to Valkyrie as it is being returned to NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Texas. NASA hopes to send the robot to Mars years ahead of astronauts landing on its surface. The exact timeline for NASA's plan to send Valkyrie to Mars and how it relates to future astronaut missions remains unclear.
Hosting NASA Valkyrie at the University of Edinburgh was a rare privilege at a time when humanoid robots were not commercially available and only a handful of research prototypes existed worldwide, according to Vladimir Ivan, former student and CTO at Touchlab. It gave us a unique opportunity to advance fundamental research in mobility and stability – work that has since evolved into humanoid systems we see in today – while helping to train and inspire a generation of outstanding roboticists, Ivan added. Valkyrie's presence also helped catalyse Edinburgh's evolution into a vibrant robotics hub, known for world-class research, thought leadership, and a thriving environment to grow knowledge, ideas, and robotics businesses, Ivan noted.
It was a gamble to invest so heavily in humanoids research back in the 2010s, when the scalability of the adaptive learning-based methods for robot planning and control we were advocating was not obvious, said Professor Sethu Vijayakumar, director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. The researchers will continue working with NASA on other robotics projects going forward. What other robotics projects the University of Edinburgh researchers will continue working on with NASA has not been specified.
The identities and roles of the other two Valkyrie prototypes in the world are unknown. The current storage conditions and future plans for Valkyrie after its return to NASA's Johnson Space Centre have not been disclosed.