Welcome, Avatar!

Avatar is Honda R&D Co., Ltd.’s wheeled humanoid prototype for remote physical work, combining a mobile platform with two arms and hands equipped with five fingers each. Standing 155 cm tall and weighing 101 kg, it has a listed maximum speed of 3 km/h and a strength specification of 5 kg. Its overall Humanoid.Guide Skill Score of 3 out of 10 places it in the developing range, with Navigation rated 1 out of 5 and Manipulation rated 2 out of 5. Supported capabilities include obstacle avoidance, sorting goods, and assembling products. The hands incorporate 288 tactile channels and fingertip force sensing, providing feedback for controlled interaction with objects. Forearm mounted electric motors drive the fingers through cables and pulleys, while torque controlled body joints support physical interaction. A head mounted wide view fisheye camera, four RGB depth cameras, and Intel RealSense cameras at the hands provide visual input. Operators interact through a VR headset and gloves, with AI assistance sharing control of fine motions.

Avatar’s technical approach links human direction with assisted execution for obstacle avoidance, sorting goods, and assembling products. The operator makes decisions while the AI support system handles fine motions, reducing the need to command every small movement directly. For sorting goods, tactile channels and fingertip force sensing supply feedback during object contact, while cameras at the hands provide close views of the working area. For assembling products, the finger drive mechanism and torque controlled joints support controlled manipulation under remote supervision. Obstacle avoidance complements the wheeled base by supporting navigation around obstructions. The shared control architecture is designed to tolerate communication delays, an important consideration when the operator and robot communicate over a network.

Avatar is listed as a prototype from Japan, developed by Honda R&D Co., Ltd. Its listed price is USD 300,000, with an inquiry process for pricing, rather than a statement of general commercial availability. Honda positions the platform for remote work in medical support, equipment maintenance, disaster response, and space exploration. These are intended application areas, not proof of deployment or readiness for every task within those settings. Its broader significance lies in combining remote human judgment with tactile feedback and AI assisted motion execution in one physical platform. The developing overall score provides useful context: Avatar represents an ongoing engineering effort toward remote physical work, rather than a mature general purpose humanoid.