HRP-2 Promet
HRP-2, designed with Kawada Industries and styled by anime designer Yutaka Izubuchi, was the workhorse humanoid of the Japanese Humanoid Robotics Project and of labs such as LAAS-CNRS.
We have not sat down with this one. The score below is computed from the data we hold, and the facts on this page are sourced. It is not on sale, so there is nothing to recommend.
How the score is built
Capability is what the machine physically does. Value compares it with others at a similar price, not with the whole market. Buyability asks whether you can really order one. Ecosystem is the software and community around it. Proof is what it has done in the field, which is where most humanoids score badly and should.
- Status
- Retired
- Category
- historic
- First revealed
- March 2003
- Form
- bipedal
- Height
- 154 cm
- Weight
- 58 kg
- Payload
- n/a
- Degrees of freedom
- 30
- Battery
- n/a
- Runtime
- n/a
- Walking speed
- n/a
- Actuation
- electric DC servomotors
- Units deployed (est.)
- not disclosed
- Teleoperation
- partial
Where it stands
Japan's national research humanoid from 2003, produced in small numbers by Kawada for universities in Japan and France.
What stands out
- Designed by Yutaka Izubuchi
- Could stand up after falling
Autonomy, observed
Walking, lying down and standing up, carrying panels with a human; used in hundreds of academic papers.
Hands, sensors, brain
- Hands: simple grippers
- Sensors: stereo cameras, gyro, force sensors
- Compute: on-board PC
- AI stack: OpenHRP software
Price and volume
Sold to research institutes at several hundred thousand dollars per unit.
About 16 units were delivered to Japanese and French labs.
Milestones.
AIST and Kawada complete HRP-2
HRP-2, a 154 cm, 58 kg humanoid designed with mecha designer Yutaka Izubuchi, can lie down and stand back up, walk on uneven ground and cooperate with humans in carrying panels. It becomes a standard research platform in Japan and France.
Japan launches the Humanoid Robotics Project (HRP)
The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry funds the five year Humanoid Robotics Project, run by AIST with Kawada Industries and Honda. It produces HRP-1 (a modified Honda P3) and the HRP-2 platform.
Japan built the first humanoids, then stopped shipping them
Japan has 24 humanoids and 12 makers in our record, more than any country except China and the United States. Two of the 24 can be ordered today, and both were first shown in 2009.
Open-source humanoids: what you can actually build
24 of the 182 humanoids on record call themselves open source. 15 publish hardware files and software, 3 name a licence, 12 can be ordered, and none of the four on preorder has any autonomy evidence yet.
A short history of the humanoid, from Elektro to the order button
Our record holds 111 dated milestones since 1939. Sixty-eight of them are from this decade, and what changed was not the walking. It was the price tag.
Other robots by AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology).
HRP-3 Promet Mk-II
HRP-3 extended the HRP line with weather resistance and tool use, targeting construction and outdoor tasks.
HRP-4
HRP-4 was a lightweight 39 kg humanoid developed by AIST and Kawada as an affordable research platform.
HRP-4C Miim
HRP-4C, nicknamed Miim, was built by AIST with the average proportions of a young Japanese woman and became known for singing and catwalk demonstrations.
HRP-5P
HRP-5P is AIST's construction-oriented humanoid that demonstrated autonomous drywall installation in 2018, aimed at labour shortages in Japanese building sites.
Sources
- 01HRP-2, WikipediaWikipedia
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