RoboDynamics has developed a personal robot, which they have named as Luna. The Luna robot does not have a humanoid form. RoboDynamics plans to begin shipping the Luna sometime later this year.
The chief executive officer at RoboDynamics is of the opinion that Luna marks the advent of the development of easy-to-operate and low cost personal robots.
A lot of efforts go into developing humanoid robots, but with a majority of the applications of robotics being in search and rescue operations, creating robots that have a form similar to animals seems a better alternative. Research at the Tufts University is directed towards the creation of soft robots that emulate the escape rolling behavior of the caterpillars and salamanders. Another research related to mimicking the behaviour of animals is the Bernoulli gripper, developed at the University of Canterbury, inspired by the Kiwis that works on the non-contact vacuum grip. It works on the Bernoulli principle. This robot is capable of climbing up vertically without making any contact with the surface. The potential application of this robot is in doing industrial inspections.
Source: http://robodynamics.com/