Innodata Opens Motion-Capture AI Lab to Help Humanoids Move Like Humans

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / September 30, 2026 / Innodata Inc. (Nasdaq:INOD) today announced the opening of a new R&D laboratory that is designed to generate the data needed to train the next generation of human-like robots and independently validate the performance data that robots generate internally.

Innodata developed the lab in collaboration with Vicon, a leader in motion capture who consulted on the lab design and continues to provide technical consulting. The New Jersey-based lab is equipped with high-precision, low-latency infrared optical tracking cameras that measure movement down to the sub-millimeter level-a degree of accuracy that methods such as wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors and single-camera (monocular) video analysis typically cannot match.

The lab addresses an urgent need for high-quality training data for humanoids, industrial robots, and other forms of physical AI. While many other data providers infer 3D motion by analyzing 2D video, Innodata captures 3D data directly, from the bodies themselves-whether those bodies are human or mechanical.

"There's just no substitute for direct 3D motion capture," said Frank Tanner, vice president of robotics and physical AI at Innodata. "When a computer vision model tries to make sense of a 2D grid of pixels, mistakes inevitably creep in. Our sensors are designed to register the tiniest motion of every joint, which makes training more accurate and efficient. When you're training a humanoid that weighs almost 200 pounds, your readings can't be in the ballpark. They need to be precise. And with this lab, they are."

"Plenty of motion capture companies have discovered humanoid robotics lately. But the teams building the most capable robots keep reaching the same conclusion: if the training data is approximate, the robot will be too," said Andrew Knox, managing director of Vicon. "Vicon sets the standard that motion data is measured against. Our systems capture people, robots and the objects they handle in the same space, with sub-millimeter accuracy and millisecond latency. That gives you independent ground truth, not an estimate. It's why the leading humanoid developers, frontier AI labs and research universities keep choosing Vicon, and why Innodata's lab is well placed to become a reference point for the whole physical AI industry."

Innodata customers will be able to purchase motion-capture data as off-the-shelf packages, or commission custom projects. Innodata can produce training data for a wide range of physical AI platforms and retarget motion data from one platform to another as needed.

Customers can also send in robots for evaluation, to confirm they perform to customer specifications. Innodata's lab experts can measure a robot's movements and responses in a variety of scripted scenarios, including those in which robots and people interact. Because the lab's calibrated cameras observe each robot from the outside, they provide an external ("exocentric") check on the robot's internal ("egocentric") telemetry, which is often noisy. The resulting measurements can be used to validate a developer's internal data reports or performance claims or to provide independent, third-party benchmarks for trust and safety.

The motion-capture lab is an important addition to Innodata's physical AI practice, which supports robotics programs across the full data lifecycle. Its work includes end-to-end real-world data capture and training data production spanning humanoids, human-operated hardware, wearable systems, sensor rigs, Universal Manipulator Interface (UMI) grippers, and other multimodal capture set-ups, as well as evaluation and safety-assurance services that validate robot performance. Innodata's physical AI experts apply the same rigorous, multi-stage quality processes the company has honed over decades of delivering premium data for mission-critical use cases in finance, government and healthcare and, more recently, for frontier AI labs.

"Physical AI is growing faster than any other segment in AI, but every robotics team hits the same wall: there isn't enough real-world interaction data, and what exists is expensive and slow to produce," said Innodata CEO Rahul Singhal. "This facility removes that wall. We now offer physical AI companies a complete end-to-end capability - from data collection through model evaluation - that compresses development cycles and gets more capable, safer robots into the world sooner."

To learn more about Innodata's physical AI offerings, contact PhysicalAI@innodata.com.

About Innodata

Innodata (Nasdaq:INOD) is a global data engineering company. We believe that data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are inextricably linked. Our mission is to enable the responsible advancement of artificial intelligence by providing the data, evaluation frameworks, and human expertise required to build AI systems that can be trusted at scale. We provide a range of transferable solutions, platforms, and services for Generative AI / AI builders and adopters. In every relationship, we honor our 36+ year legacy delivering the highest quality data and outstanding outcomes for our customers.

Visit www.innodata.com to learn more.

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