Human Support Robot

A black and white robot on a mobile base, with a single white arm with claw-like gripper, and a head composed of camera eyes and a tablet display. — HSR is here to support you. Photo: Toyota

The Human Support Robot (HSR) is a compact mobile manipulator for the disabled and elderly. HSR can move around the house, keep watch over family members, and fetch objects. Its creators hope to make HSR beneficial to all people in the near future.

Creator

Toyota Motor Corporation

Year

2012

Country

Japan 🇯🇵

Categories

Features

How HSR will help attendees of the 2020 Olympics. Video: Toyota

Did you know?

HSR is one of the standard platforms used by teams in RoboCup@Home league and World Robot Summit.

A mobile robot uses a claw hand on a single arm to hand a bottle of water to a patient in bed. — HSR can fetch bottles and other objects. Photo: Toyota

History

Toyota introduced its Human Support Robot (HSR), which is part of its Partner family of robots, in 2012. According to the company, HSR is "Toyota's answer to the ever-increasing demand for long-term elderly care in societies like Japan." The robot features a highly maneuverable, compact, and lightweight cylindrical body. With its folding arm, HSR can retrieve objects from shelves, pick objects up off the floor, and perform a variety of other tasks. The robot is used for research in multiple Toyota facilities as well as university research labs in Japan and the United States. Toyota has announced that HSR and other robots will help visitors during the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

A black and white robot with a black claw-like gripper on its torso, and a head composed of camera eyes and a tablet display. — HSR will give you a hand. Photo: Toyota

Specs

Overview: Compliant control of arm joints. Compact body and smooth omni-directional movement. Integrated control of multi-DoF arm and omni-directional base. Large workspace, with arm able to fetch boxes from a high shelf as well as objects on the floor.
Status: Ongoing
Year: 2012
Website: global.toyota/en/mobility/frontier-research
Width: 43 cm
Height: 100 cm (The robot can raise its telescoping body and reach 135 cm)
Length: 43 cm
Weight: 37 kg
Speed: 0.8 km/h
Sensors: Base with lidar, 6-axes IMU, and sensor to detect magnetic tape (used to delimit boundaries). Head with Asus Xtion PRO Live, stereo camera, wide-angle camera, and microphone array. Hand with force sensor and wide-angle camera.
Actuators: 11 motors
Degrees of Freedom (DoF): 11 (Neck: 2 DoF; Arm: 4 DoF; Gripper: 1 DoF; Torso: 1 DoF; Base: 3 DoF)
Materials: Steel, aluminum, 3D-printed parts
Compute: Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU. Expansion ports include USB, VGA, serial, power, auxiliary emergency stop, LAN.
Software: Ubuntu Linux OS, ROS, custom software stack for navigation, manipulation, and perception.
Power: Lithium-ion battery