Domestic General-Purpose Robot Development Competition: Four Participants Selected to Advance to Refinement Phase

We are pleased to announce that four participants have been selected to advance to the refinement phase of the Domestic General-Purpose Robot Development Competition, which is being conducted as part of a project commissioned by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). The four participants, listed in Japanese alphabetical order, are Enactic Inc., THK Co., Ltd., Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp., and ugo Inc.

We evaluated the prototype robots that the seven selected participants developed and manufactured over a period of approximately six months, and chose the four participants on the basis of this evaluation.

1. Evaluation of Prototype Robots 

This competition aims to promote the development of general-purpose robots (dual-arm mobile manipulators) in Japan. Participating companies worked on developing prototype robots for approximately six months, and AIRoA evaluated the completed prototypes based on the following three criteria:

• Demonstration Evaluation:
  At AIRoA’s Heiwajima facility, participants demonstrated a variety of tasks in home-like, retail-like, manufacturing-like, and logistics-like environments, and AIRoA evaluated the degree of task achievement.
• Qualitative Evaluation:
  Based on the demonstrations above, an evaluation committee of robotics experts qualitatively evaluated the robots’ completeness in terms of operational quality, operability, design, and functionality.
• Practical Deployment Requirements Evaluation:
  Based on mass-production plans, maintenance systems, and other plans submitted by each company, the committee evaluated the feasibility of practical deployment.

 Evaluation Committee Members (Qualitative Evaluation)

• Tetsuya Ogata: Chairman of AIRoA / Professor, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University
• Takumi Kawasetsu: Associate Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University
• Kento Kawaharazuka: Lecturer, UTokyo AI Center and Department of Mechano-Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo

2. Evaluation Results

After synthesizing these three evaluations, AIRoA selected four participants to proceed to the next phase: the refinement phase. Despite the short development period of approximately six months, all companies presented highly complete prototype robots.

Comments regarding future development prospects were received from each company.

Enactic, Inc.

In this competition, we took on the challenge of developing a mobile manipulator that inherits and leverages the philosophy of OpenArm, an open-source robot arm used by many developers. Going beyond optimization for the competition tasks, we also focused on adjustments that emphasize operability in actual work and practical use in real-world environments. Moving forward, we will continue to build a foundation that enables even more people to accelerate their development.

ー Daijiro Mori,CEO, Enactic, Inc.

THK Co., Ltd.

We are deeply honored to have been selected as a participant advancing to the refinement phase of the AIRoA Development Competition. In the refinement phase, 

we will focus on enhancing safety, robustness, and operational UX to evolve our robot into an even more practical solution. Leveraging our mechanical component technologies, such as LM guides, and the insights gained from demonstration experiments with semi-humanoid robots, we will contribute to accelerating the development of foundation models for robots.

ー Hirotaka Ujiie, Head of Lab I, RT Research Unit, Research Center, Headquarters – Industrial Machinery, THK Co., Ltd.

Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp.

 Nachi-Fujikoshi has been in the robotics business since 1968, contributing to the automation and advancement of manufacturing worldwide. Today, driven by advancements in Physical AI technology, expectations for robots are surging, and their application areas are expanding significantly. Developing high-quality foundation models requires high-quality data collection, which in turn demands high-quality robots. Building on our longstanding industrial robot technologies, we will promptly complete a practical, high-performance, and highly reliable general-purpose robot.

ー Akira Kunisaki, Executive Managing Director, General Manager of Robot Division, Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp.

ugo Inc.

We are deeply honored to have advanced to the refinement phase. Moving forward, we will refine our design with mass production in mind and enhance maintainability. In addition, we plan to implement the functions necessary for deployment in real-world environments sequentially, increasing the completeness of the physical machine. Going beyond the scope of research and development, we will accelerate our efforts toward the social implementation of general-purpose robots that are actually used in the field.

ー Ken Matsui, ugo, Inc. CEO

3. Future Outlook

Each company plans to further enhance functionality, safety, and reliability during the refinement phase, scheduled to continue until March 2027. This clear roadmap aims to begin delivering production models and deploying them for data collection from July 2027 onward. We will further accelerate research and development toward the social implementation of general-purpose robots in Japan.

AIRoA will continue to promote the social implementation of Physical AI and build an open ecosystem based on industry-academia-government collaboration. Building on the technology, knowledge, and network cultivated in this competition, we will accelerate strengthening the supply chain and the co-evolution of technology in domestic general-purpose robotics, while broadly returning the outcomes obtained through the NEDO-commissioned project to society.

About the Domestic General-Purpose Robot Development Competition

This competition is being carried out as part of the NEDO-commissioned project “Project for Strengthening Post-5G Information and Communication Systems Infrastructure / Development of a Data Platform for Generative AI Foundation Models in the Robotics Field.” The project aims to develop a data collection platform needed for robot foundation model development, and the domestic general-purpose robots developed through this competition are expected to be used as robots for data collection.

For more information:https://www.nedo.go.jp/koubo/CD3_100398.html

Contact Information

Press Contact: pr@airoa.org 

Domestic General-Purpose Robot Development Competition Secretariat: hw.comp@airoa.org