The company PNDbotic recently released new images of its humanoid robot called Adam and what appears in the videos marks an important point for the entire industry. The robot is not only operating in controlled environments, it is facing the real world, climbing irregular stairs, urban spaces, variations in terrain, and unpredictability.

And the most impressive thing is not just the fact that he can climb stairs, it is how he does it, fluidly, with adaptation, without external support. But to understand the weight of this it is necessary to go back a little in time, in the initial stages, Adam was tested in the laboratory in simplified versions. often headless, subject to safety systems while he learned to balance.

That process, known as Sim to Real, is one of the biggest challenges of modern robotics, because teaching a robot in simulations is one thing, making it work in the real world is a completely different thing, and it is exactly that barrier that is being broken down. Adam can now navigate real urban environments without assistance, facing small imperfections that, for a human, go unnoticed, but for a machine they represent an enormous challenge.

Much of that evolution comes from a system called Clot, a real-time motion tracking model that allows robots to continually adjust their actions based on the environment. This creates a constant feedback loop where the robot observes, corrects and adapts to violations of seconds and when this happens on a large scale, the impact for the company will not only be technological, it will be economic, social and perhaps irreversible.

But making a robot walk is just the beginning, because the real challenge is not in the body of the machine, it is in the mind that controls that body.