Hugging Face has introduced the Microduck, a $399 duck-like robot that is set to ship before Christmas, according to an article published on TechCrunch. The robot, developed by Hugging Face in collaboration with its acquired subsidiary Pollen Robotics, stands 25 centimeters tall and is capable of various movements, including waddling, picking up objects with its beak (up to 800 grams), self-righting when fallen, crouching, and roller skating. Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue described the Microduck as an “open-source robot you can teach new tricks with reinforcement learning,” emphasizing the company’s aim to democratize physical AI and world models through affordable, open-source hardware.
The Microduck is equipped with a camera, lidar sensors, and two inertial measurement units (IMUs) for environmental perception. Pollen Robotics highlighted that the robot’s behaviors can be trained in simulation and directly deployed, with the ability for developers to fine-tune, retrain, and redeploy the bot using an SDK, simulation tools, and a full reinforcement learning (RL) training stack available on GitHub. Despite the privacy concerns associated with robots equipped with cameras and microphones, Delangue previously argued that open-source models offer better privacy protections compared to proprietary systems controlled by a few organizations. The launch of the Microduck coincides with reports of Hugging Face being acquired by Nvidia at a $13 billion valuation, with both companies having a long-standing partnership and shared commitment to promoting open-source AI.