Insider Brief
- Pollen Robotics introduced Microduck, a small biped robot designed as an open development platform for physical AI, reinforcement learning and sim-to-real experimentation.
- The 25-centimeter, sub-800-gram robot uses 15 motors, a camera, depth sensor, two IMUs and an articulated beak, and can walk, crouch, recover from falls and carry objects.
- Microduck is available for pre-order at $399, with initial deliveries targeted before Christmas 2026 in North America, Europe and the U.K., while its open-source software supports robot control, simulation and reinforcement learning.
Hugging Face’s Pollen Robotics has introduced Microduck, a small biped robot designed as an open development platform for experimenting with physical AI, reinforcement learning and transferring robot behaviors from simulation into real hardware.
According to Pollen Robotics, Microduck can walk, sit, crouch and recover from many common falls. It can also roller-skate and ships with pre-trained behaviors that allow users to control it with a gamepad, follow a laser pointer, trigger movements and react to its surroundings.
Pollen Robotics noted that Microduck’s small size is by design in order to make reinforcement-learning experiments easier to conduct outside dedicated robotics laboratories. Failed behaviors can be reset more easily than with larger humanoids, while the robot’s ability to recover from falls reduces the need for users to manually reposition it after unsuccessful attempts, the cmpany pointed out.
Microduck is being marketed differently from Reachy Mini, the desktop robot Pollen Robotics launched last year. Reachy Mini was designed primarily around conversation and human-robot interaction, while Microduck is intended for developers exploring how AI models control physical movement.
Microduck Specifications
- Height: 25 centimeters
- Weight: Less than 800 grams
- Motors: 15
- Vision: Camera and depth sensor
- Motion sensing: Two IMUs
- Manipulation: Articulated beak for picking up and carrying objects
- Movement: Walking, sitting, crouching, fall recovery and roller-skating
- Price: $399 before taxes and shipping
- Colors: Cream, Graphite, Lavender and Sky
The robot uses an open-source software stack covering robot control, simulation, reinforcement learning and sim-to-real deployment. Pollen Robotics has released separate repositories for Microduck’s SDK and robot software and for its reinforcement-learning and sim-to-real tools.
The company said developers can train behaviors in simulation before transferring them to the physical robot. The software and pre-trained behaviors are intended as a starting point that users can modify and expand.
Microduck is also designed to support experiments involving multiple robots. Pollen Robotics said groups of the machines can be used to explore coordinated behaviors, including games and other multi-robot tasks, without requiring larger and more expensive hardware.
Hugging Face, which acquired Pollen Robotics in 2025, will play a role in making robot behaviors easier for developers to share and reproduce. Pollen Robotics said it will allow physical behaviors to be distributed alongside the environments and training methods needed to recreate them, similar to how AI models are shared today.
Microduck is available for pre-order at an introductory price of $399 before taxes and shipping, with expected initial deliveries before Christmas 2026 in North America, Europe and the U.K.
Image credit: Pollen Robotics/Hugging Face
