Rainbow Robotics

A collaborative robot and humanoid company founded by KAIST HUBO researchers; in 2024, Samsung Electronics became its largest shareholder.

Rainbow Robotics

Overview

Rainbow Robotics (레인보우로보틱스) is a South Korean robotics company founded in 2011 by KAIST HUBO (휴보) researchers. It holds core technologies for collaborative robots, dual-arm robots, and humanoid robots, and was listed on the KOSDAQ market in 2021. In 2024, as Samsung Electronics (삼성전자) became its largest shareholder, the company was incorporated as a consolidated subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.

Key Details

Founding Background and History

In 2011, Professor Oh Jun-ho of KAIST's Department of Mechanical Engineering and researchers who had participated in HUBO development founded the company as a technology startup. The HUBO project that served as its foundation had drawn attention as a representative case of humanoid robot research from the early 2000s, and in 2015 the KAIST team (DRC-HUBO) won the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) hosted by the U.S. DARPA, earning international recognition for its technology. Based on this achievement, the company began with a research robot platform business and expanded into industrial collaborative robots, securing capital through its KOSDAQ listing in 2021.

Major Product Lines

Collaborative robot RB series: It has a lineup with different payloads and working radii, including RB3-850, RB5-850, RB10-1300, and RB16-900. It is characterized by force control and collision detection functions that allow it to work in the same space as people without a separate safety fence.
Dual-arm robot AMBIDEX: A cable-driven dual-arm robot that mimics the structure of a human arm, targeting two-handed work in narrow spaces and service/research applications.
HUBO-series humanoids: Research and education platforms incorporating bipedal walking and whole-body control technologies; recently they are being reevaluated as a basis for commercial humanoid development.
Autonomous logistics/service robots: It responds to factory and logistics automation demand through AMR (autonomous mobile robot) and mobile manipulator product lines.

Technical Characteristics

The company has a vertically integrated structure in which it designs robot joint actuators, controllers, and software in-house. In particular, its force/torque control-based collaborative robot control technology and bipedal walking balance control technology are evaluated as core capabilities. It also pursues a strategy of lowering customer adoption barriers by providing robot operation software and teaching interfaces itself.

Relationship with Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics began its cooperative relationship by acquiring a stake of about 10% in early 2023, and in 2024 it became the largest shareholder by securing about 35% through additional share purchases. Accordingly, Rainbow Robotics was incorporated as a consolidated subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. Industry observers see the move as reflecting Samsung Electronics' willingness to foster its robotics business, with collaborative robot and humanoid technologies expected to combine with the group's future growth engines.

Recent Trends

In 2024–2025, the robotics industry is being reorganized around humanoids and AI-based robot control. Rainbow Robotics is focusing on advancing its existing collaborative robot lineup while developing commercial humanoids using HUBO-series technologies and responding to Physical AI (the trend of combining generative AI with robots). Since its incorporation into Samsung Electronics, the possibility of application in the group's manufacturing sites and cooperation on components and software is taking shape, and order expansion at home and abroad is expected in conjunction with the government's robotics industry promotion policy. However, intensifying global competition in the collaborative robot market and uncertainty over the commercialization timing of the humanoid business are cited as major risks.