KAIST RAIBO2

KAIST RAILAB (South Korea) KAIST RAIBO2 (3)

Not for sale

Not for sale (research)Marathon on one chargePublished in Nature42 kg6 m/s

Not for saleShipping: N/A.

LEARN MORE (KAIST RAILAB robots page) ↗

Overview

A research quadruped from Professor Jemin Hwangbo's RAILAB at KAIST, and the first quadruped to finish a full marathon. On November 17, 2024 it completed the 42.195 km Sangju Dried Persimmon Marathon in 4:19:52 on a single charge. The course had about 286 m of elevation change, slopes up to 10° and slippery sections. An earlier version ran out of battery at about the 37 km mark in a September 2024 race. The Nature paper published on September 23, 2026 credits lighter legs, a more efficient motor driver and a learned gait tuned to save energy.

It was not fully autonomous. A camera on its head streamed the course to a human operator who steered it. A controller, a camera operator and crowd support took turns over 10 km stretches. The paper reports a cost of transport of 0.25, below the 0.37 human benchmark it cites, with energy left for about 25 km more. At 42 kg it is lighter than ANYmal D at 50 kg and quoted at 6 m/s against ANYmal's 1.3 m/s, though built for endurance research rather than inspection work. Its 6 m/s top speed is also well above MIT Mini Cheetah's 3.9 m/s. Spin-off Raion Robotics is preparing a commercial Raibo for disaster recovery, security and industrial inspection.

Type: Quadruped robot · Research & legacy platforms
Maker: KAIST RAILAB (South Korea)
Released: 2024
Price: Not for sale
Status: Not for sale (research)
Best for: Professionals & labs
Programming: No programmability

Price and shipping

A KAIST research robot. Raion Robotics, a 2023 spin-off of the lab, presents Raibo2 as its main product and takes purchase, demo and quote requests through its website, but no price has been published.

Shipping: N/A. Not sold by KAIST. Raion Robotics takes sales and demo inquiries for its commercial Raibo2 through a contact form, with no price or lead time published (checked October 2026). Raion Robotics ↗

Specifications

Category	Quadrupeds · Research & legacy platforms
Released	2024
Country	South Korea
Availability	Not for sale (research)
Fastest Robot Dogs	Ranked #6 by top speed
Programmability	No programmability
Built-in autonomy	None / scripted · Moves only when controlled, or plays preset motions
LLM support	None · No LLM and no public SDK. Walking runs on a learned policy built by the lab.
MuJoCo simulation	None found · Nothing found.
NVIDIA Isaac simulation	None found · Nothing found. The lab trains RAIBO walking policies with reinforcement learning in RaiSim, its own simulator, and has not published a RAIBO2 model. KAIST RAILAB news (RaiSim webinars) ↗
Gazebo simulation	None found · Nothing found. No URDF or robot description has been published.
Best for	Professionals & labs
Vision sensors	Camera, Lidar
Actuators	Brushless / direct-drive motors
Audio	Unknown
Compute type	Proprietary / undisclosed
Compute	Not published
Weight	42 kg (93 lb). A 16s10p Li-ion pack of 2,016 Wh (Nature press release, 1,930 Wh in some reports) gives up to 8 hours of operation per the lab. It used about 1,280 Wh over the marathon
Speed	6 m/s (21.6 km/h, 13.4 mph) top speed per the lab. Averaged 2.64 m/s (9.5 km/h, 5.9 mph) over the full marathon
DOF	12 (unconfirmed, the first RAIBO uses 12 motors). Modular hollow-shaft actuators with lightweight legs
Sensors	A head camera streams the route to a remote operator. Lab photos show a lidar on top (unconfirmed). Telemetry includes battery voltage, motor temperatures and GPS
SDK	None public

Timeline

Sep 2024Trade showAn earlier version ran out of battery at about the 37 km mark of a marathon Interesting Engineering ↗
Nov 17, 2024Trade showFinished the full Sangju Dried Persimmon Marathon in 4:19:52 on one charge, the first quadruped to complete a marathon KAIST RAILAB news ↗
Sep 23, 2026UpdatePaper on the marathon run published in Nature Nature paper ↗

Common questions

How much does KAIST RAIBO2 cost?

Not for sale. A KAIST research robot. Raion Robotics, a 2023 spin-off of the lab, presents Raibo2 as its main product and takes purchase, demo and quote requests through its website, but no price has been published.