Honda develops dexterous robotic hand, targets early 2030s commercialisation

August 06, 2026 (MLN): Honda Motor Co. has developed a highly dexterous robotic hand, marking the company's return to robotics with a new industrial focus following the retirement of its once-iconic ASIMO humanoid robot, with plans to commercialise the multi-fingered system in the early 2030s for use in manufacturing as labor shortages intensify.

Unlike conventional industrial robots built for repetitive tasks, Honda's latest system combines fine motor control with strength, enabling a single robot to carry out a range of assembly work.

The robot can grasp a screw just 1.6 millimeters in diameter between its thumb and index finger, rotate it and insert it into a hole, while also lifting objects weighing up to 5 kilograms using its fingertips, APP reported.

Takahide Yoshiike, executive chief engineer at Honda R&D Co., said the company has achieved a remarkable level of smoothness, even in very delicate movements.

Equipped with tactile sensors that detect the shape of objects, the four-fingered hand  designed without a little finger manipulates components and orients them correctly before assembly, and is also capable of more complex tasks such as assembling connectors.

Honda plans to begin full-scale field testing at its Yorii factory in Saitama Prefecture, where the robot will sort large volumes of parts supplied by subcontractors, with the company hoping the technology will allow a single robot to perform multiple tasks and help manufacturers automate production lines increasingly affected by labor shortages.

One of the key advances, Honda said, is a newly developed finger drive system, for which the company has filed a patent application.

Conventional robotic fingers are typically powered by motors and wires, creating durability challenges, whereas Honda's new mechanism, according to Takahide Yoshiike, bends like a willow, while still delivering force efficiently.

The project marks a new chapter in Honda's robotics program following the retirement of ASIMO, which debuted in 2000 and became one of Japan's best-known humanoid robots.

Although ASIMO demonstrated advanced walking and interaction capabilities, Honda could not eliminate concerns that the robot might knock over people nearby in unexpected situations, such as a child suddenly hugging it, making further business expansion difficult to envision, and the robot was retired in 2022.

Around 2019, Honda shifted its robotics research toward developing robotic fingers, continuing the work largely out of public view.

Takahide Yoshiike recalled that people kept asking what happened to Honda's robots, adding that rather than imitating existing technology, the company focused on developing something original, noting that creating new value meant taking on challenges without knowing exactly how we'd solve them, and that the process was difficult but the team persisted.

The multi-fingered hand, the result of those efforts, was unveiled at a robotics exhibition in Tokyo in late May and has already drawn multiple business inquiries, the company said.

Honda also plans to launch a joint research project with RIKEN during fiscal 2026 to accelerate development of what it calls Physical AI, a technology intended to allow robots to autonomously learn tasks.

Takahide Yoshiike said the company's immediate goal is to bring the best solution possible to market using its current technology.

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