HEBI wins a NASA grant to shrink the actuator — and the price with it

Pittsburgh-based HEBI Robotics, a Carnegie Mellon spinout, won a NASA SBIR Phase I contract for miniaturized high-torque-density modular actuators aimed at SmallSats and CubeSats. The award runs through December 2026.

We're looking to bring the price point down on rugged hardware without compromising the reliability that a critical industry such as aerospace relies on. — Andrew Willig, director of hardware, HEBI Robotics

The stated goal is to bridge the gap between cheap, low-performance hobby servos and costly custom space robotics — a gap that exists in terrestrial robotics too. "Space is difficult," Willig said, "but the lessons apply here on earth as well."

The second award, and the product line

Earlier in 2026 HEBI won a NASA Phase II SBIR: a two-year, $850,000 project covering harsh-environment actuation hardware plus control electronics compatible with third-party systems, aimed at low Earth orbit and geostationary missions.

HEBI's product lines are the T-Series, R-Series and H-Series, built as Lego-like modular hardware. The company built NASA's SUPERball tensegrity mobile robot and won a 2025 RBR50 award for its inchworm robot family.

Why it matters

Actuators are the line item that decides whether a robot is affordable, and the market is barrel-shaped: cheap and unreliable at one end, bespoke and expensive at the other. Korea is funding actuator R&D for the same reason; NASA is funding it for a harsher environment. The middle is where most of robotics has to live.

Space is a useful forcing function here because it prices failure honestly. A design that survives thermal cycling and radiation with no service visit is over-engineered for a warehouse — which is exactly what makes the derived version cheap and dull enough to deploy in one.