World’s first humanoid robot deploys drone that drives and flies from its backUpdated: Oct 15, 2025 04:37 AM EST
he California Institute of Technology, also known as Caltech, has introduced the ‘world’s first’ multi-robot system that combines a humanoid robot and a transforming drone to walk, fly, and drive in synchronization.
The X1 System integrates multiple locomotion modes like walking, flying, and driving into one coordinated robotic system that can seamlessly adapt to complex terrains and tasks.
The team developed this system over three years in a collaboration between Caltech and the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), Abu Dhabi.
The main aim behind building this system is to integrate all the available locomotion modalities in a single package to mitigate each machine’s drawbacks and downfalls.
The broader vision was to build adaptive and reliable autonomous systems that can perform real-world missions- from emergency response to urban navigation – without human control.
Decoding the X1 system
The X1 system consists of two components for building the system.
The first is a modified Unitree G1 robot that can walk and carry heavy loads. The second is the M4 multimodal robot that can fly and drive as and when required.
The Unitree G1 carries this M4 robot like a backpack and can launch it in two locomotion modes. The M4 was developed by Caltech’s Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST).
“We install different kinds of sensors—lidar, cameras, range finders—and we combine all this data to understand where the robot is, and the robot understands where it is to go from one point to another,” said Claudio Tortorici, director of TII.
“So, we bring the capability of the robots to move around with autonomy,” he continued.
Director of CAST, Aaron Ames, also revealed the final details in modifying the G1 humanoid, stating there was more to it than what met the eye during the demonstration.
He stressed the importance of operating humanoids without human reference, unlike how they usually learn human movements through captured data.
“If we want to really deploy robots in complicated scenarios in the real world, we need to be able to generate these actions without necessarily having human references,” he argued.
Caltech’s demo
The team carried out a demonstration at Caltech’s Pasadena campus. To demonstrate its ability, the humanoid walked through the corridors into an open area.
To begin with, the humanoid bent forward and launched the M4 from its back in a drone mode.
Then, this multimodal robot soared over obstacles and later transformed into a wheeled vehicle to continue its journey.
When it encountered the campus’s Turtle Pond, it seamlessly switched back to flight, crossed the water, and resumed its mission.
“The challenge is how to bring different robots to work together so, basically, they become one system providing different functionalities.
With this collaboration, we found the perfect match to solve this,” said Mory Gharib, CAST’s founding director. In doing so, the system displayed impressive adaptability across environments.
The X1 project united Caltech’s Ames Lab for locomotion control, CAST’s Gharib Group for M4’s design, TII for autonomy and onboard computing, and Northeastern University for morphing mechanics – creating a seamless integration of walking, flying, and driving robotics.
A vision for the future
For the Caltech-TII team, the next goal is to enhance the qualities of this system in terms of adaptiveness and usefulness for real-world deployment.
“We’re thinking about safety-critical control, ensuring we can trust these systems,” said Ames.
“By working together on projects like this, we’re taking meaningful steps toward making autonomy truly robust,” he added.
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