Torobo is Tokyo Robotics' torque-controlled humanoid research platform. It stands approximately 1,615-1,680 mm tall, weighs around 120-160 kg, and features 7-axis dual arms, a 3-axis waist, a 3-axis neck, and a 4-axis omnidirectional mobile base. Every joint in the arms and waist is equipped with a torque sensor, enabling high-performance impedance and force control for contact-rich manipulation and machine-learning research.

Tokyo Robotics Humanoid Robots — Company Profile, Torobo Specs & Component Support

2015
Founded
Tokyo, Japan
Headquarters
Torobo Humanoid
Latest flagship (2026)
Yaskawa sub.
Ownership
Japan
Country
Acquired 2025
Status

About Tokyo Robotics

Tokyo Robotics Inc. (東京ロボティクス株式会社) was founded in January 2015 by Yoshihiro Sakamoto and Yuki Matsuo, two robotics engineers who had trained together in the same Waseda University laboratory. Sakamoto, who holds a Ph.D. from Waseda (2013) focused on indoor localization using GPS-compatible signals, serves as the company's President and CEO. The company is a Waseda University spinoff — a lineage that runs directly back to Waseda's foundational contributions to humanoid robotics, including the WABOT-1, widely considered the world's first full-scale biped, developed in the early 1970s. Tokyo Robotics is headquartered in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo.

From the beginning, Tokyo Robotics positioned itself around a very specific technical thesis: that the path to practical humanoid robots runs through whole-body torque sensing and force control, not through better balance controllers or larger vision models alone. The company's engineering focus has been on high-performance torque-sensing joints, joint-level and Cartesian impedance control, and multi-fingered hands that can safely interact with people, objects, and unstructured environments. This angle put Tokyo Robotics ahead of most contemporaries on contact-rich manipulation and made its Torobo Arm a widely adopted research platform in Japanese and international robotics laboratories long before the current general-purpose humanoid AI boom took shape.

The company's funding trajectory reflects a deliberate, deep-tech, industrially anchored approach rather than a Silicon Valley-style hyperscale raise. Tokyo Robotics received early backing from Chatwork Co-founder and CEO Masaki Yamamoto, followed by seed financing from Igarashi Electric Works Ltd. in December 2021 and a strategic investment and technology partnership with Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. announced in January 2020. Sony Innovation Fund has also been publicly associated with the company. Total disclosed venture funding remained in the low single-digit millions of dollars — modest compared with U.S. humanoid peers, and consistent with a research- and industrial-partner-led capitalization model common in Japan.

The defining corporate event in Tokyo Robotics' history came on July 1, 2025, when Japanese industrial-automation leader Yaskawa Electric Corporation (TYO: 6506) acquired 100% of Tokyo Robotics' shares and made it a wholly owned subsidiary. The transaction — Yaskawa's first acquisition of a humanoid-robot manufacturer — was publicly framed by Yaskawa's leadership as a bet that the durable value in humanoids lies in work capability (manipulation) rather than bipedal locomotion alone, and that Tokyo Robotics' force-controlled actuator expertise is the key building block. In April 2026, Tokyo Robotics publicly demonstrated a next-generation bipedal Torobo Humanoid prototype, positioning the combined Yaskawa–Tokyo Robotics group among Japan's most credible domestic humanoid programs, alongside Toyota Research Institute's humanoid work and long-time bipedal specialists such as Kawada Robotics.

Product lineup: Torobo Arm, Torobo (dual-arm humanoid), and Torobo Humanoid (bipedal)

Tokyo Robotics has iterated a coherent, research-first product line since 2015. Every platform shares the same underlying design language — whole-joint torque sensing, ROS- native control, and openness to third-party sensors and end-effectors — and each generation has moved incrementally closer to a production-relevant humanoid rather than chasing a single hero product.

Torobo Arm — the torque-controlled research arm

The Torobo Arm is a 7-axis, straight-configuration research robot arm designed to accelerate robotics research. Every joint is equipped with a torque sensor, enabling joint-level torque feedback, joint impedance control, and end-effector Cartesian impedance control. Tokyo Robotics ships open source code for the user interface and the servo controller, and the arm is designed to integrate with common robotics simulators. Worst-case payload is approximately 8 kg per arm, with peak holding force up to 20 kg when the elbow is bent at a right angle.

Torobo Arm-Hand System — arm + multi-fingered hand

Introduced in November 2022, the Torobo Arm-Hand System integrates the force-controlled Torobo Arm with a four-fingered dexterous hand tuned for advanced object manipulation research. The hand's index, middle, and ring fingers each use two-drive-axis, three-joint configurations, while the thumb has four fully driven joints. More than 20 contact-sensing points are distributed across the fingers and palm, with replaceable sensor packs to support long-running research programs.

Torobo — the dual-arm, whole-body humanoid

The full-body Torobo platform is Tokyo Robotics' flagship research humanoid. Its 2024 revision, publicly disclosed in June 2024, stands roughly 1,615–1,680 mm tall, weighs approximately 120–160 kg (upper body plus mobile base), and combines 7-axis dual arms, a 3-axis waist (P-P-Y), a 3-axis neck (Y-P-R), and a 4-axis omnidirectional wheeled base. Payload is 7 kg per arm at worst-case posture. Every joint in the arms and waist carries a torque sensor, and both joint impedance and end-effector Cartesian impedance are adjustable in real time. Torobo runs on ROS 2, supports optional stereo, fisheye, and depth cameras plus a stereo microphone in the head, and can carry an on-board PC with an NVIDIA RTX 4070-class GPU for perception and learning workloads. Continuous run time is up to approximately 3 hours on internal batteries, with charging while running supported.

Torobo Humanoid — the bipedal next-generation prototype

In April 2026, Tokyo Robotics publicly released video demonstrations of a next-generation bipedal Torobo Humanoid prototype. The prototype extends the Torobo design language from wheeled base to legged locomotion, with reinforcement-learning-based whole-body control trained in Isaac Sim and validated in MuJoCo. Public demonstrations featured forward and backward walking, push recovery on a tether, and teleoperated whole-body motion. Development is now proceeding under the combined Yaskawa Electric organization, which has indicated that Tokyo Robotics' actuator expertise will feed both the humanoid roadmap and adjacent industrial products such as Yaskawa's MOTOMAN NEXT series.

Model	Year	Height	Weight	Payload	Battery	Actuators	Notable
Torobo Arm	2015+	—	—	~8 kg (worst)	External DC	7-axis torque-sensing	Full-joint torque sensors; open-source UI & servo code
Torobo Arm-Hand	2022	—	—	~8 kg (worst)	External DC	7-axis arm + 4-finger hand	20+ tactile points; ROS 2; dexterous manipulation research
Torobo (2024)	2024	~1,615–1,680 mm	~120–160 kg	~7 kg / arm	~3 hr	Dual 7-axis arms; omnidirectional base	Whole-body torque sensing; ROS 2; optional RTX 4070 head PC
Torobo Humanoid	2026	~1.6 m (est.)	N/A disclosed	N/A disclosed	N/A disclosed	Bipedal legs; force-controlled joints	RL whole-body control (Isaac Sim → MuJoCo); Yaskawa era

Technology stack

Tokyo Robotics' platform is built around a single, coherent technical bet: every joint should sense force. Where many humanoid programs treat torque sensing as an optional add-on, Tokyo Robotics designs its arms, waist, and hand joints as torque-first mechanisms and layers perception, learning, and industrial-workflow integration on top of that foundation.

Perception

The Torobo humanoid's optional head can be configured with a wide-angle stereo camera, a fisheye camera, and a depth camera, plus a stereo microphone and speaker, giving it a rich audio-visual awareness of the workspace. The arms and hands add force-torque sensing at every joint and — on the Torobo Arm-Hand System — more than twenty tactile contact points across the fingers and palm. This combination of vision, hearing, and distributed force sensing is what allows Torobo to perform contact-rich manipulation tasks such as hammering, sawing, table-wiping, and fine object handling that are difficult for humanoid platforms without full-body force sensing.

Control, AI, and simulation

Torobo runs on ROS 2 and is designed to integrate cleanly with the standard robotics- research software stack, including MoveIt, Gazebo, Isaac Sim, and MuJoCo. Real-time control uses joint impedance and end-effector Cartesian impedance schemes whose parameters can be adjusted on the fly, supporting both stiff position control for precise motion and compliant control for safe human and environment interaction. The 2026 Torobo Humanoid prototype adds reinforcement-learning-based whole-body control policies trained in Isaac Sim and cross-validated in MuJoCo before deployment on hardware — a modern sim-to-real pipeline that mirrors the approach taken by leading international humanoid programs.

Actuators, power, and compute

Torobo uses electric torque-sensing servo actuators throughout the body — no hydraulics — with all-joint torque sensors on the arms and waist. The dual-arm humanoid runs on internal batteries with up to roughly three hours of continuous operation and supports charging while running. External back-of-robot terminals provide 24 V DC power, eight-channel digital and analog I/O in and out, and dual Ethernet, so the platform can be extended with third-party sensors and computers. A single on-board PC handles motion control by default, with an optional second PC equipped with an NVIDIA RTX 4070-class GPU dedicated to head sensors, perception, and learning inference.

Power management at this scale is a demanding subsystem. Each torque-sensing joint's servo controller must deliver hundreds of watts of instantaneous torque without thermally throttling, which drives the use of high-efficiency wide-bandgap semiconductors (SiC and GaN) in the motor-driver stages and requires tightly matched precision passives on every gate-drive and current-sense channel. Distributed torque sensors add their own noise-sensitive analog front ends, which live or die on precision resistors, low-drift op-amps, and clean local decoupling. The internal battery pack integrates cell balancing, thermal management, and multi-stage battery-management ICs — subsystems whose reliability is often the practical ceiling on how long a humanoid platform of this class can run between charges.

Applications and commercial deployments

Tokyo Robotics' primary market has historically been research and R&D — university robotics laboratories, corporate advanced-research teams, and industrial-automation R&D groups — with a secondary focus on manufacturing, logistics, and service-sector automation studies. Under Yaskawa ownership, the platform is now being positioned as a foundation for future factory-floor humanoid applications as well.

University and corporate robotics research. The Torobo Arm and the full-body Torobo platform have been widely adopted by robotics laboratories in Japan and abroad for machine-learning research, dual-arm manipulation studies, force-control benchmarks, and deep predictive learning.
Industrial-automation R&D under Yaskawa. Following the July 2025 acquisition, Tokyo Robotics' torque-controlled actuator technology is being applied to both the Torobo humanoid roadmap and to Yaskawa's broader industrial-robot line, including expansion of the MOTOMAN NEXT series for flexible manufacturing.
Domestic Japanese humanoid program. The 2026 bipedal Torobo Humanoid prototype is positioned as one of the leading domestic Japanese humanoid programs, alongside Toyota Research Institute's humanoid work and long-standing bipedal specialists such as Kawada Robotics.
Manufacturing, logistics, and service pilots. Tokyo Robotics has publicly described Torobo as a platform for tasks in manufacturing, logistics, and service settings — grasping, walking, cleaning, and material transport are all explicitly targeted use cases as the platform matures.

The robotics supply chain — where Hybrid Electronics fits in

A modern humanoid robot is one of the most component-dense products ever built. A single Torobo-class platform depends on thousands of individual electronic components: precision BLDC motor drivers, high-torque servo modules with integrated joint-level torque sensors, IMUs and 6-DoF force-torque sensors, LiDAR and time-of-flight modules, GPU compute boards, battery-management ICs, wide-bandgap SiC/GaN power semiconductors, high-speed board-to-board connectors, precision resistors, and thousands of MLCC capacitors distributed across every power and signal rail.

Building that kind of hardware puts enormous pressure on the electronic-components supply chain. Prototype pilots and low-volume production runs frequently hit allocation, EOL notices, and long lead times on the exact parts they need, and R&D and field-service teams routinely have to support older platforms that use semiconductors no longer in mainstream distribution. During the current humanoid robotics and general-purpose robot AI boom, this pressure is amplified: dozens of well-funded teams are chasing the same short list of high-torque BLDC drivers, precision IMUs, GPU compute modules, and automotive-grade power semiconductors, and franchise stock on many key parts is now measured in months of lead time rather than weeks.

Hybrid Electronics has been sourcing electronic components for industrial and embedded systems since 1995. For robotics teams — humanoid, mobile, industrial, and research — we specialize in finding the parts you need when mainstream distribution can't:

Obsolete and end-of-life parts

Legacy semiconductors, sensors, connectors, and passives that are no longer in mainstream distribution — the parts that keep older research platforms running during transitions to newer hardware, and the long-tail items that block a BOM from closing.

Allocated and hard-to-find active parts

High-torque BLDC motor drivers, IMUs and MEMS sensors, SiC/GaN power devices, GPU compute modules, precision resistors, and MLCC capacitors caught in allocation or long-lead times. Send us a BOM or a shortage list — we'll confirm what we can source and at what lead time.

Frequently asked questions

Who founded Tokyo Robotics?

Tokyo Robotics was founded in January 2015 by Yoshihiro Sakamoto and Yuki Matsuo, both alumni of the same Waseda University laboratory. Sakamoto holds a Ph.D. from Waseda University (2013) focused on indoor localization using GPS-compatible signals and serves as President and CEO. The company is headquartered in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo.

What is Torobo?

Torobo is Tokyo Robotics' torque-controlled humanoid research platform. Its 2024 revision stands approximately 1,615–1,680 mm tall, weighs around 120–160 kg, and combines 7-axis dual arms, a 3-axis waist (P-P-Y), a 3-axis neck (Y-P-R), and a 4-axis omnidirectional mobile base. Every joint in the arms and waist is equipped with a torque sensor, enabling high-performance impedance and force control for contact-rich manipulation and machine-learning research.

Where is Torobo deployed?

Torobo is positioned as a research-and-development platform used by university laboratories, corporate R&D teams, and industrial-automation researchers in Japan and internationally. It is used for machine-learning research, dual-arm manipulation, whole-body force control, and industrial-application prototyping. Torobo supports ROS 2, MoveIt, Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, and Gazebo, which makes it straightforward for research groups to plug into existing pipelines.

How much has Tokyo Robotics raised?

Tokyo Robotics' disclosed pre-acquisition funding was modest by U.S. humanoid-startup standards — reported at roughly the low single-digit millions of dollars in aggregate. Public investors include Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (January 2020 strategic investment and technology partnership), Igarashi Electric Works Ltd. (December 2021), Chatwork CEO Masaki Yamamoto (seed), and Sony Innovation Fund. On July 1, 2025, Yaskawa Electric Corporation acquired 100% of the shares and Tokyo Robotics became a wholly owned subsidiary of Yaskawa. The transaction value was not disclosed.

Is Hybrid Electronics affiliated with Tokyo Robotics?

No. Hybrid Electronics is an independent electronic-components sourcing company. We are not a distributor, reseller, or partner of Tokyo Robotics or Yaskawa Electric. All trademarks are property of their respective owners. Hybrid supports robotics developers by sourcing obsolete, allocated, and hard-to-find semiconductors, sensors, connectors, and passives for R&D, prototype, and low-volume production builds.

Can Hybrid help with components for humanoid robotics builds?

Yes. We regularly support R&D and integrator teams with hard-to-find semiconductors, BLDC motor-driver ICs, IMUs and other MEMS sensors, connectors, SiC/GaN power devices, and precision passives for the industrial and embedded boards used in robotics platforms. Send us a BOM or a short list of shortages and we'll confirm availability and pricing.

Trademark and affiliation notice. Tokyo Robotics®, Torobo, Torobo Arm, Torobo Hand, and Torobo Humanoid are trademarks of Tokyo Robotics Inc. (東京ロボティクス株式会社), a wholly owned subsidiary of Yaskawa Electric Corporation. Hybrid Electronics is an independent electronic-components sourcing company and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by Tokyo Robotics Inc. or Yaskawa Electric Corporation. All information on this page is compiled from public sources for educational and reference purposes.