Sulu.be — Belgian character-driven humanoid robotics
Sulu.be is the Mechelen-based robotics studio of Belgian artist and technologist Jan De Coster, best known for the 210 cm humanoid robot Steve. While most companies chasing the current humanoid robotics and AI boom are optimizing for factory floors and warehouses, Sulu approaches the humanoid form as a medium for character, storytelling, and public interaction — a distinctive European voice in a field otherwise dominated by industrial general-purpose platforms.
- 2012First robot built
- Mechelen, BEHeadquarters
- Steve (210 cm)Flagship humanoid
- UndisclosedFunding
- BelgiumCountry
- PrivateStatus
About Sulu.be
Sulu.be is the robotics practice of Jan De Coster, a Belgian artist, art director, and self-taught roboticist who has been building physical interactive installations since 1999. Working from a home studio in Mechelen, Belgium, De Coster spent the early 2000s at agencies including BBDO, TBWA, and Boondoggle, where he honed a background in character design and communication. In 2012 an agency asked him to build a robot for a campaign — four weeks later, a small robot named Yummy was finished, and De Coster became a robot-maker from that point on. Sulu.be is the umbrella under which those robots — and the humanoid work that followed — are developed and shown.
Steve, the studio's largest and best-known robot, was originally conceived in sketches in 2013 and brought to life a year later through a collaboration with the Belgian media company Brightfish. At 210 cm tall and 140 kg, Steve is a deliberately minimal, expressive humanoid — a "friendly giant," in De Coster's own description — designed not to imitate human behavior but to have a character of his own. Alongside Steve, the studio has developed and toured a family of smaller robots including Yummy, Rachel, and Robin, each with its own personality and interaction model.
Unlike most companies in the current humanoid robotics and general-purpose AI boom — which are venture-funded, employ hundreds of engineers, and target industrial deployment — Sulu.be operates as an independent, artist-led studio. No outside funding rounds, investors, or valuation are publicly disclosed. Projects have historically been commissioned or co-produced, including Belgian national advertising campaigns for retailers such as Delhaize and KBC, and De Coster's robot installations have been exhibited in galleries from Berlin to Monterrey.
Within the wider European humanoid landscape — a field that now includes NEURA Robotics (Germany), Generative Bionics (Italy), UMA (France), and Motion.one (Belgium) — Sulu occupies an unusual position. It is not chasing the factory-floor or logistics use case that dominates the humanoid narrative today; instead, it treats the humanoid form as a medium for storytelling and public engagement. That positioning is what has kept the studio distinctive over more than a decade of work, and it is the reason Steve continues to appear at corporate receptions, cultural festivals, and public events across Europe rather than on an assembly line.
Product lineup: Steve, Yummy, Rachel, and Robin
Sulu.be's robot family reflects more than a decade of iteration on character-driven machines. The lineup ranges from the compact, itinerant robots Rachel and Robin — which travel between exhibitions and depend on the people around them — to Yummy, the original campaign robot from 2012, and Steve, the studio's flagship humanoid. Steve is the platform most often cited in public listings of humanoid robots and is the one covered in depth below.
Yummy (2012) — the first robot
Yummy was De Coster's first robot: a compact character machine built in roughly four weeks for an agency campaign in 2012. It marked the start of Sulu's shift from interactive installations to robotics and established the studio's core interest in character rather than in industrial function.
Rachel and Robin — the traveling robots
Rachel and Robin are smaller humanoid-adjacent characters described by De Coster as robots that travel the world, "depending on people around them to take care of them." They are used to explore themes of empathy, care, and human–machine relationships in gallery and festival contexts rather than on stage.
Steve (built 2014) — the 210 cm flagship humanoid
Steve is Sulu.be's largest and most technically ambitious robot: a 210 cm, 140 kg humanoid character with 22 total degrees of freedom, ten fingers, a dual-arm structure, DC motors, and custom aluminium gears. Steve was conceived in 2013 and built the following year with Brightfish. It runs on Arduino-class compute with OpenAI language integration for conversational scenes, and is designed to operate safely alongside people in indoor environments such as corporate receptions and cultural festivals.
| Model | Year | Height | Weight | Payload | Battery/Runtime | Actuators | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yummy | 2012 | — | — | — | — | Custom | Sulu's first robot; agency campaign build |
| Rachel | — | — | — | — | — | Custom | Traveling character robot; galleries and festivals |
| Robin | — | — | — | — | — | Custom | Traveling character robot; galleries and festivals |
| Steve | 2014 | 210 cm | 140 kg | ~5 kg | ~2 hr / charge | DC + aluminium custom gears (22 DoF) | Flagship humanoid; Brightfish collaboration; 8 km/h max |
Technology stack
Sulu.be's engineering is deliberately pragmatic. Rather than pursuing state-of-the-art actuators, Vision-Language-Action models, or GPU-class onboard compute, the studio builds robots around a stack that is robust enough to perform live in front of audiences and simple enough for a small team to maintain. The trade-offs are visible in Steve's published spec sheet.
Perception and interaction
Steve interacts primarily through gesture, pose, and voice rather than through contact-rich manipulation. Public specifications describe him as safe to operate around humans, with modest manipulation and navigation capability (rated 2 out of 10 on Humanoid.Guide's independent scale) and Wi-Fi connectivity for remote scripting and content updates. He is designed for indoor environments and choreographed public appearances rather than autonomous open-world operation.
AI and control
The compute stack is Arduino-class rather than GPU-based, and language interaction is handled via an OpenAI integration for scripted or semi-scripted conversation. This is a very different design philosophy from the general-purpose Vision-Language-Action models being deployed by Figure, Tesla Optimus, or NEURA — Steve's "intelligence" is scoped tightly to on-stage presence, greeting, and short-form dialogue rather than open-ended physical work.
Actuators, power, and structure
Steve uses DC electric motors throughout the body with custom aluminium gearing, giving him 22 total degrees of freedom (including 2 in the hands, spread across 10 fingers) and a top speed of 8 km/h. The main structural material is aluminium and steel, and runtime on a single charge is roughly two hours. Onboard strength is modest — approximately 5 kg — consistent with a robot built for gesture, expression, and interaction rather than for lifting or industrial work.
Even a low-power, character-focused humanoid like Steve depends on a component stack that is under real supply-chain pressure. DC motor drivers, IMUs and pose sensors, precision passives on gate-drive and current-sense channels, battery-management ICs, and the wide-bandgap power semiconductors (SiC/GaN) used in modern motor stages are all subject to allocation, EOL notices, and long lead times as the broader humanoid and general-purpose robotics AI boom consumes distribution stock. Studios of Sulu's size feel that pressure more sharply than well-capitalized industrial players because they cannot pre-buy inventory a year in advance.
Applications and deployments
Sulu.be's robots are used as public-facing figures at events, campaigns, and cultural contexts — not as industrial or logistics automation. Documented applications and use contexts include:
- Corporate receptions and cultural festivals (Steve). Steve appears at private and public events across Europe as a greeter, storyteller, and conversation piece, combining scripted dialogue with choreographed gestures.
- National advertising campaigns (Belgium). Earlier Sulu / Jan De Coster robot installations have been used in Belgian national advertising campaigns for major retailers, including Delhaize and KBC.
- Gallery and museum exhibitions. The studio's robot installations — including Rachel and Robin — have been shown in galleries from Berlin to Monterrey, in the context of contemporary art and character-design programming.
- Public talks and conferences. De Coster has presented Sulu's robots at events such as Pictoplasma, OFFF Sevilla, and beyond tellerrand, positioning the studio inside the design and interactive-installation community as much as the robotics community.
The robotics supply chain — where Hybrid Electronics fits in
A modern humanoid robot is one of the most component-dense products ever built. Even a character-focused platform like Steve depends on hundreds to thousands of individual electronic components: BLDC motor drivers, DC motor-driver ICs, high-torque servo modules, IMUs and 6-DoF force-torque sensors, LiDAR and time-of-flight modules, GPU compute boards, battery-management ICs, wide-bandgap SiC/GaN power semiconductors, high-speed board-to-board connectors, precision resistors, and MLCC capacitors distributed across every power and signal rail. The larger and more industrial the humanoid, the deeper the bill of materials — but even a small, artist-led studio can be blocked by a single obsolete part.
Building that kind of hardware puts enormous pressure on the electronic-components supply chain. Prototype pilots and low-volume production runs frequently hit allocation, EOL notices, and long lead times on the exact parts they need, and R&D and field-service teams routinely have to support older platforms that use semiconductors no longer in mainstream distribution. During the current humanoid robotics and general-purpose robot AI boom, this pressure is amplified: dozens of well-funded teams are chasing the same short list of high-torque motor drivers, precision IMUs, GPU compute modules, and automotive-grade power semiconductors, and franchise stock on many key parts is now measured in months of lead time rather than weeks. Independent studios and small integrators — the segment Sulu belongs to — are often the first to be squeezed out.
Hybrid Electronics has been sourcing electronic components for industrial and embedded systems since 1995. For robotics teams — humanoid, mobile, industrial, and research — we specialize in finding the parts you need when mainstream distribution can't:
Obsolete and end-of-life parts
Legacy semiconductors, sensors, connectors, and passives that are no longer in mainstream distribution — the parts that keep older platforms running during transitions to newer hardware, and the long-tail items that block a BOM from closing on a low-volume build.
Allocated and hard-to-find active parts
High-torque BLDC and DC motor drivers, IMUs and MEMS sensors, SiC/GaN power devices, GPU compute modules, precision resistors, and MLCC capacitors caught in allocation or long-lead times. Send us a BOM or a shortage list — we'll confirm what we can source and at what lead time.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Sulu.be?
Sulu.be is the robotics studio of Belgian artist and technologist Jan De Coster, based in Mechelen, Belgium. De Coster has been building physical interactive installations since 1999 and shifted his focus to humanoid and character robots around 2012. He is the designer and builder behind the studio's humanoids, including Steve, Yummy, Rachel, and Robin.
What is Steve?
Steve is Sulu.be's flagship humanoid robot: a 210 cm tall, 140 kg character robot with 22 degrees of freedom, ten fingers, DC motors with custom aluminium gears, and an aluminium and steel structure. Originally conceived in sketches in 2013 and built the following year with the media company Brightfish, Steve was designed to engage people emotionally rather than functionally, and is deployed at corporate receptions, cultural festivals, and public events.
Where are Sulu robots deployed?
Sulu robots are used as public-facing figures at events and campaigns rather than in industrial deployments. Steve has appeared at corporate receptions and cultural festivals. Earlier Sulu / Jan De Coster robots have been used in Belgian national advertising campaigns for retailers including Delhaize and KBC, and his robot installations have been exhibited in galleries from Berlin to Monterrey.
How much has Sulu.be raised?
Sulu.be is an independent artist-led robotics studio rather than a venture-backed startup. No outside funding rounds, investors, or valuation are publicly disclosed. Steve and the studio's other robots have been built through project-based collaborations, including the original 2014 build of Steve with Belgian media company Brightfish.
Is Hybrid Electronics affiliated with Sulu.be?
No. Hybrid Electronics is an independent electronic-components sourcing company. We are not a distributor, reseller, or partner of Sulu.be. All trademarks are property of their respective owners. Hybrid supports robotics developers by sourcing obsolete, allocated, and hard-to-find semiconductors, sensors, connectors, and passives for R&D, prototype, and low-volume production builds.
Can Hybrid help with components for humanoid robotics builds?
Yes. We regularly support R&D and integrator teams with hard-to-find semiconductors, BLDC motor-driver ICs, IMUs and other MEMS sensors, connectors, SiC/GaN power devices, and precision passives for the industrial and embedded boards used in robotics platforms. Send us a BOM or a short list of shortages and we'll confirm availability and pricing.
Trademark and affiliation notice. Sulu.be, Steve, Yummy, Rachel, and Robin are the property and trademarks of their owner, Jan De Coster / Sulu.be. Hybrid Electronics is an independent electronic-components sourcing company and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by Sulu.be or Jan De Coster. All information on this page is compiled from public sources for educational and reference purposes.