Overview

The RB-Y1 is South Korea's first dual-arm mobile manipulator and comes from Rainbow Robotics, a spin-off from the KAIST lab that once built the humanoid HUBO. Since May 2024, the company has been taking orders: the research version started at 80,000 USD, the commercial version at 120,000 USD.

Construction

A humanoid upper body with two arms featuring seven joints each and three kilograms of payload capacity sits on a fast wheeled platform. A six-axis torso mechanism acts like a single leg and changes the working height by more than 50 centimeters, allowing deep grasping and a low center of gravity during fast movement. Overall, the 131-kilogram machine has 24 degrees of freedom, travels at up to 1.5 meters per second, and runs for around three hours per charge. Optional Mecanum wheels are now available for omnidirectional movement.

Technology and AI

The RB-Y1 is deliberately designed as an open platform for AI research. Rainbow Robotics supplies a development kit with public documentation and open interfaces, allowing labs to train their own learning methods for dual-arm manipulation. According to the manufacturer, the arms achieve repeatability in the sub-millimeter range.

Market Significance

Rainbow Robotics is listed on the Korean technology exchange KOSDAQ. In early 2025, Samsung Electronics increased its stake to around 35 percent and made the company a consolidated subsidiary, a clear signal of Samsung's robotics ambitions. Since then, the RB-Y1 has established itself as one of the most widely used research platforms for dual-arm mobile manipulation.