It didn’t soar, but it did rise.

Tethered to safety cables and lifting about a foot and a half off the ground on June 18, 2025, the Italian Institute of Technology’s iRonCub3 became the first humanoid robot to achieve flight under its own jet-powered propulsion. It was a small leap for a robot, but researchers say it represents a monumental advance in the fusion of aviation and robotics—with implications that could one day reshape disaster response operations.

A flying humanoid robot could be deployed in dangerous or inaccessible areas, conducting structural inspections or monitoring environments toxic to humans.

“The ultimate goal is basically to have disaster response, the technology that can help operators to act remotely where basically it’s difficult to walk, and to arrive, to get to the place, so you would like something that flies, avoids debris and obstacles, that lands and makes inspections, that looks for survivors,” said Daniele Pucci, the institute’s director of artificial and mechanical intelligence.

“This research is radically different from traditional humanoid robotics and forced us to make a substantial leap forward with respect to the state of the art,” Pucci said. “Here, thermodynamics plays a pivotal role . . . Aerodynamics must be evaluated in real time, while control systems must handle both slow joint actuators and fast jet turbines. Testing these robots is as fascinating as it is dangerous and there is no room for improvisation.”

In a recently published white paper, the IIT team detailed how they tackled one of robotics’ hardest challenges: enabling a humanoid robot to fly while maintaining balance, control, and awareness of its aerodynamic environment. Unlike drones or fixed-wing craft, a flying humanoid must contend with shifting airflow over limbs and torsos—structures designed not for flight but for navigating human spaces.

To overcome those limitations, engineers equipped the 4-foot-tall, 132-pound iRonCub3 with four jet engines. Its round face and large eyes give it a childlike appearance, but this is no toy. Its titanium spine can withstand temperatures above 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit. When the engines fire, it sounds like a small jet airplane.

iRonCub3 also includes AI-powered control systems that enable it to fly through “high-speed turbulent airflows, extreme temperatures, and the complex dynamics of multi-body systems.”

The robot underwent extensive testing in a wind tunnel, allowing researchers to fine-tune its mechanics before attempting flight. Its jetpack includes two engines mounted on its back for lift and balance, while two engines on the forearms manage altitude. Together, they enable the robot to adjust thrust and joint movement in real time to stay airborne.

According to the institute, “The research team studied the complex aerodynamics of the artificial body and developed an advanced control model for systems composed of several interconnected parts. The overall work on iRonCub3, including real flight tests, took about two years. In the latest experiments, the robot was able to lift off the floor by approximately 50 cm while maintaining its stability. The achievement paves the way for a new generation of flying robots capable of operating in complex environments while maintaining a human-like structure.”

The institute is partnering with Genoa Airport (Aeroporto di Genova) to conduct further prototype testing. The airport will provide a dedicated testing space in the coming months. The project has been many years in the making, dating back to 2004, according to the institute. iRonCub3 leverages the platform of the existing ICub.

“The financial support arrived through one of the first IP projects funded by the EU Commission under the 6th Framework Programme: the RobotCub project. RobotCub effectively started on September 1st, 2004 and ran for 65 months. RobotCub had three main goals reflecting the design of the iCub robot, its diffusion as an open platform (in the sense of Open Source), and the implementation of a number of basic cognitive skills. At the end of the project in 2010, our expectations were surpassed by reality. We had built at least 15 robots for various laboratories worldwide, raised the interest of open source robotics and successfully led the integration of a large set of skills in a common software repository.”

“The iCub design, a community work, took only about three and a half years, and it is the only platform to date which can claim enough generality to be used for studying crawling and walking, vision, touch, AI, cognition, manipulation and learning, in the shape of an easy-to-use small humanoid that can be operated in any laboratory without any special equipment. The iCub has 53 degrees of freedom with the majority in the upper body and 9 in each hand. The iCub sensors include cameras, microphones, force/torque sensors, a full body skin, gyros and accelerometers and encoders in every joint.”

With iRonCub3’s lift-off, humanoid robots have now touched land, air and sea. Years ago, researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology developed SWUMANOID—the world’s first robot capable of mimicking the freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly strokes of human swimmers. Unlike most humanoid robots, which are designed to complete tasks, SWUMANOID was created to study water resistance and improve competitive swimwear design.

Engineers used 3D scans of elite swimmers to model the robot. A key benefit of using robots in this type of research is repeatability—something human subjects can’t consistently provide—making them invaluable for measuring water resistance with precision.

As the iRonCub3 hovers toward future iterations, its developers hope the next leaps won’t just be higher—but more meaningful, especially in environments where a human presence would be too dangerous or impossible.