Honda’s Avatar Keeps ASIMO’s Core Idea

Single-source brief: Honda showed a teleoperated Avatar Robot and advanced hand. Deployment plans remain unclear.

The Key Change Is Human Control

Honda’s Avatar Robot is not framed as a fully autonomous worker.

At Humanoids Summit 2026, visitors remotely operated the robot. They also experienced its multi-fingered hand, Robotics and Automation News reported.

Honda’s model keeps a person in the decision loop. The robot and AI systems help carry out physical movements.

That is a clear shift from chasing a general-purpose humanoid. It aims first at remote work where people cannot, or should not, go.

Honda points to hazardous sites and remote maintenance as possible uses. Those remain long-term use cases, not confirmed deployments.

The Hand Carries Much of the Story

Honda says its human-scale hand can thread needles, use scissors, tighten screws, and handle heavy objects.

The hand has 16 powered joints. Its joints can move continuously at up to 180 degrees per second.

Honda says each fingertip can exert up to 50 newtons of continuous force. Six-axis force sensors sit at the fingertips.

The hand also has 288 tactile-sensor channels across its fingers and palm. Honda reports more than 450,000 durability-test cycles.

That includes 24,000 cycles lifting a 5-kilogram weight.

ASIMO Experience Appears to Continue

Honda says former ASIMO engineers contributed to the Avatar program and hand.

The link is less about ASIMO’s form. It is about control, walking, human interaction, and manipulation work.

The deployment stage is still unknown. No independent confirmation of real-world use was supplied.