“The Humanoid Robotics Project (HRP) was an R&D project sponsored by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan from 1998 JFY (Japan fiscal year) to 2002 for 5 years. The objective of the project was to develop a safe and reliable human-friendly robot system which can carry out complicated tasks and human supports within the sphere of human activity. One of the sources of inspiration for this project was the technological progress in robotics and information processing typically represented by the Honda humanoid robot P2 which was announced to public in 1996. Another motivation for this project was Japan’s demands for supporting people’s daily life caused by decrease of birth rate and increase of aging population.

The robot is an enhanced version of Honda P3, which provides interface for teleoperation and various applications. Four copies of HRP-1 were built and evaluated in the following scenarios: maintenance tasks of industrial plants, human care, teleoperations of construction machines, and security services for home and office.” - HRP Robots by Shuuji Kajita

HRP-1 vs HRP-1S

One of the limitations of the original HRP-1 was that the arms and legs were controlled separately. AIST decided to upgrade the HRP-1 robots (and change the name to HRP-1S) by replacing the control software and main computer. The new computer used in HRP-1S is a 800 Mhz Pentium 3 that interfaces with the Honda I/O board (from the original robot). The combination of motion generator and simulator was called V-HRP at the time but would later become part of OpenHRP. It is not clear if all four HRP-1 robots were upgraded to HRP-1S robots.

Where are they now?

Four HRP-1 robots were built. One shown in the video above was modified to have a screen for a head and a slighly different paint job. One HRP-1 was on display at the Science Museum in Kitanomaru Kōen, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan between 2005 and 2012 as part of the NEDO exhibit (which itself ended in 2017). An HRP-1 (specifically number 1) was on display at the AIST Tokyo Waterfront building (臨海副都心センター) in Tokyo as of March 2017.

One HRP-1 robot (specifically number 2) is on permanent display at Tsukuba Expo Center as of 2020.

Published Papers

A Honda Humanoid Robot Controlled by AIST Software Experimental Study of Biped Locomotion of Humanoid Robot HRP-1S OpenHRP: Open Architecture Humanoid Robotics Platform