Honda Research Institute Unveils New Version of Social Robot HARU with Contributions from KTH
The Robot Design Lab’s soft robotic neck is now part of HARU’s new design and was revealed in HARU Fest 2024 in Tokyo
The Robot Design Lab at KTH took part in HARU Fest 2024 , hosted in Tokyo on May 8-10 by the Honda Research Institute of Japan. The bi-annual event once again brought together members of the Socially Intelligent Robotics Consortium , alongside academics, designers, and engineers from diverse fields, to exchange ideas about the future of social robots and their role in everyday life.
A highlight of this year’s festival was the unveiling of a new version of HARU, the expressive tabletop social robot that serves as a collaborative research platform for the consortium. This updated HARU model now incorporates the soft robotic neck designed and implemented by the Robot Design Lab at KTH. The integration was made with the research goal of improving HARU’s safety, reliability, and expressive capabilities, enabling more natural and engaging interactions.
The new HARU is planned to be distributed to consortium partners worldwide, providing a shared platform to advance research into socially intelligent robotics. Demonstrations during the festival showcased how the robot’s updated hardware and integrated technologies can support innovative research across disciplines, from interaction design to control engineering.
For the Robot Design Lab, HARU Fest 2024 marked a milestone: seeing its research embedded in the next-generation platform and contributing to a tool that will support social robotics research globally. The event reaffirmed the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in shaping technologies that are safe, reliable, and attuned to human needs.