- Start
- Sep 16, 202690% CONFIDENCEfrom the source
ugo Unveils the Nova Semi-Humanoid in Tokyo
- On 16 September 2026, at the Physical AI Summit in Tokyo, the AI Robot Association (AIRoA) showed for the first time the results of its domestic general-purpose robot development competition.[1]
- Seven companies - ugo, THK, Nachi, Keigan, HatsuMuv, Enactic and EmplifAI - lined up dual-arm mobile manipulator prototypes.[1]
- ugo used the competition to unveil Nova, a new domestically built semi-humanoid developed in roughly six months.[1]
- Every robot shown relied on human teleoperation at this stage, which is the point of the contest: collecting high-quality operation data before autonomy.[1]
Notable features
- ugo says Nova is not an upgrade of an earlier machine: its hardware and software were redesigned from scratch for physical AI, and it is designed and built in Japan, with 22 degrees of freedom in all and a waist lift for work at different heights.[1]
- Nova has two seven-axis arms on a wheeled base; it collects teleoperated human movements as training data for physical AI, with the aim of making the work autonomous later. Mass production is planned for 2027.[1]
- Nova carries up to 4 kg per arm and 10 kg with both, runs up to six hours, moves omnidirectionally on Mecanum wheels and uses NVIDIA Jetson Thor for edge inference.[2]
- Cameras on the head and hands, 100 Hz arm control and teleoperation by bilateral or VR controllers (the bilateral control uses Asratec technology) let one machine both record training data and run the trained model.[1][2]
References 379% CONFIDENCE
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
- [1]90%robotstart.info/article/2026/09/17/382428.htmlrobotstart.info· Posted Sep 21, 2026· Starts Sep 16, 2026 ✓· 34% of score
Happened as dated, per robotstart.info: the article opens "2026年9月16日、東京で開催された「フィジカルAI Summit」において" - at the Physical AI Summit held in Tokyo on 16 September 2026.
- [2]70%Ugo Announces New Humanoid Robothumanoidroboticstechnology.com· Published Sep 16, 2026· 33% of score
Gives the same 16 September announcement, the Japanese design and manufacture, the 2027 mass-production plan and Nova's specifications; a specialist trade site with a thin editorial record, so held at the floor.[1]
- [3]78%From nail hammering to drilling, Japan's new robots push physical AI forwardeuronews.com· Published Sep 16, 2026· 33% of score
Euronews reported from the one-day physical AI summit in Tokyo on the same date, naming ugo Nova performing a drilling task under remote control alongside the THK, Nachi and HatsuMuv machines.
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