Kepler said its booth became a high-traffic destination at ICRA 2025. Credit: Kepler Robotics
During last month’s IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2025 in Atlanta, Kepler Robotics Co. introduced its latest humanoid robot, the K2 “Bumblebee.” The Shanghai, China-based company said the live demonstration of the robot’s operational capabilities drew attention from researchers, executives, and engineers from across the global robotics ecosystem.
Kepler Humanoid Robot claimed that its booth was a high-traffic destination at ICRA 2025. The K2 greeted attendees with natural gestures; navigated the venue with steady, autonomous mobility; and interacted fluidly with other robotic systems, according to the company. Numerous people lined up to pose with the robot for photographs and videos, it added.
Notable visitors to the Kepler booth included Jim Fan, senior research scientist at NVIDIA, and Hesheng Wang, general chair of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), among other robotics experts. They engaged in discussions on the trajectory of humanoid robotics and the path to scalable deployment in industrial environments.
Kepler designs K2 humanoid for industrial use
Kepler Humanoid Robot said it is “dedicated to developing industry-leading, blue-collar humanoid systems.” Purpose-built for industrial settings, the K2 Bumblebee is 175 cm (68.9 in.) tall, weighs 75 kg (165.3 lb.), and features 52 degrees of freedom and more than 80 integrated sensors.
The robot’s onboard compute reaches 100 TOPS (trillions of operations per second), enabling it to autonomously execute task sequences in structured operational environments, said Kepler.
The Bumblebee features Kepler’s proprietary planetary roller screw actuators, engineered for smooth motion control and reduced energy draw. With near-zero static power consumption, the robot offers extended uptime, the company asserted.
Combined with its innovative series-parallel architecture and advanced actuation system, Kepler said the K2 supports payloads of 15 kg (33.1 lb.) per arm and up to 30 kg (66.1 lb.) with both arms. The robot can deliver up to eight hours of operational time on a single one-hour charge. The company added that the K2’s proprietary rotary actuators enable millimeter-level (0.04 in) precision for fine motor tasks.
The Bumblebee also includes Kepler’s proprietary Dexterous Hands, each featuring 11 degrees of freedom, 25 force-sensing contact points per finger, and a six-axis force/torque sensor at the wrist. These capabilities allow for advanced manipulation tasks across a range of industrial applications, the company explained.
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Humanoids take steps toward production
As the humanoid category moves into early-stage mass production, robots must demonstrate high payload capacity, endurance, and cost-efficiency to achieve sustainable deployment. Kepler reported that over 80% of its robot’s core hardware is developed and manufactured in-house to support vertical integration, reduce costs, and improve supply chain resilience.
The base model of the K2 Bumblebee is priced at $30,000 and can perform the equivalent workload of approximately 1.5 full-time human workers in comparable timeframes, according to Kepler.
“The next major focus for the humanoid robot sector is achieving a complete commercial value loop, and industrial environments present the clearest path to near-term deployment,” stated Debo Hu, CEO of Kepler Humanoid Robot. “Our fifth-generation humanoid robots are now in limited-series production, with industrial use cases as our initial focus. Our latest round of funding reinforces our confidence in the commercial viability of our platform.”
Deployment flexibility is a key enabler for humanoid adoption. Goldman Sachs has predicted that humanoid robots could begin integration into manufacturing environments between 2024 and 2027.
Kepler is targeting intelligent manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, niche industries, academic research, and education as its primary markets. The company’s commercialization roadmap prioritizes penetration of specific verticals before expanding into general-purpose use cases.
K2 units are currently being trialed across a range of real-world industrial scenarios, said Kepler. The company is continuing to expand its partnerships throughout the robotics value chain to accelerate the transition from prototyping to commercial-scale deployment.
For more about ICRA, catch the recent episode of The Robot Report Podcast that recaps the event.
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