Making interactive robots for the well-being of humans

Founded in 2005 by Bruno Maisonnier and now established in France, United States, China and Japan, Aldebaran Robotics designs, produces and commercializes humanoid robots with the aim of contributing to the well-being of humans. Today, over 5,000 NAO are in use throughout the world as research and educational tools in more than 70 countries around the world. Aldebaran Robotics counts more than 400 people, including 40% of R&D, who are involved in the development of its robots.

Nao (pronounced now) is an autonomous, programmable humanoid robot developed by Aldebaran Robotics, a French robotics company headquartered in Paris. The robot’s development began with the launch of Project Nao in 2004. On 15 August 2007, Nao replaced Sony’s robot dog Aibo as the robot used in the RoboCup Standard Platform League (SPL), an international robot soccer competition. The Nao was used in RoboCup 2008 and 2009, and the NaoV3R was chosen as the platform for the SPL at RoboCup 2010.

Several versions of the robot have been released since 2008. The Nao Academics Edition was developed for universities and laboratories for research and education purposes. It was released to institutions in 2008, and was made publicly available by 2011. Various upgrades to the Nao platform have since been released, including the 2011 Nao Next Gen and the 2014 Nao Evolution.

Nao robots have been used for research and education purposes in numerous academic institutions worldwide. As of 2015, over 5,000 Nao units are in use in more than 50 countries.