Welcome, North!
North is a wheeled humanoid robot developed by Sharpa Robotics in Singapore for service, industrial, and research work. It combines a human shaped upper body with a mobile wheeled base, standing 160 centimetres tall and weighing 90 kilograms. North has 67 degrees of freedom overall, including tactile Wave hands with 44 degrees of freedom across both hands. Its reported operating time is eight hours per charge, supporting extended work periods in commercial environments. Electric servo actuators provide movement, while micro motors and gears in the hands support detailed object handling. North uses NVIDIA Jetson Thor computing hardware, Ethernet and Wi Fi connectivity, and a Linux based operating system compatible with ROS 2. CraftNet, Sharpa’s Vision Tactile Language Action model, connects visual perception, touch, language understanding, and action. With a total Humanoid.Guide Skill Score of 5 out of 10, North is a developing platform with a stronger manipulation rating of 4 out of 5 than its navigation rating of 1 out of 5.
North is designed for obstacle avoidance while operating around people and workplace equipment. Its tactile hands and manipulation focused design support sorting goods, assembling products, filling and emptying a dishwasher, and folding clothes. These tasks require coordinated arm motion, controlled grasping, and reliable handling of varied household and commercial objects. The robot’s wheeled mobility supports operation across indoor service, hospitality, retail, manufacturing, and research spaces, where it can move between workstations without relying on a fixed installation. CraftNet provides the connection between perception and action needed for responsive task execution, while tactile sensing contributes to controlled contact during object handling. The reported hand response time of less than 0.02 seconds also emphasizes rapid reaction during manipulation. North’s 4 out of 5 manipulation rating positions physical work with objects as its principal capability area.
North is listed as a prototype, placing it in the active development stage rather than broad commercial deployment. Its reported price is 130,000 USD, with purchases handled through an inquiry process. Sharpa presented North publicly at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, where the robot operated autonomously across multiple days of demonstrations. The platform is significant because it combines a mobile humanoid form, tactile hands, embodied AI, and a runtime intended for complete work shifts. Rather than focusing only on laboratory demonstrations, North targets practical work in food service, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, and research. Its development reflects growing interest in robots that can perform repetitive physical tasks in human designed spaces, using hands and mobility suited to existing tools, objects, work surfaces, and service environments.
