Toyota T-HR3

What it's for

The Toyota T-HR3 is a 154 cm humanoid that repeats the gestures of an operator wearing a 170 kg station with VR goggles (the Master Maneuvering System); the operator feels resistance in the hands when the robot touches an object. It was shown in November 2017, and without that external station the robot is just a set of motors.

Remote work in dangerous places. Toyota points to home assistance, medicine, rescue operations and space as scenarios. This is the potential application of teleoperation: the human stays somewhere safe while the robot goes where it is not worth risking a life. You will meet similar situations in the use-case entries hospitals and construction sites.

Research into force feedback. The robot has 32 axes of motion and hands with ten fingers, with force and torque sensors in the joints. With them the system keeps its balance and coordinates the whole body, and the operator gets feedback. It is a proving ground for engineers who want to know how to transfer "feel" over a distance. How degrees of freedom work is explained in “Degrees of Freedom (DOF) in Humanoid Robots”.

Demonstrations. T-HR3 is a demonstration project; we found no information about it working in a plant or a hospital. It was never sold.

Technical background: the robot is not autonomous. It is no competitor to humanoids with VLA models (which you can read about in “VLA Models: How AI Controls Humanoid Robots in 2026”), but a predecessor of the idea of teleoperated avatars, like the later Honda Avatar Robot.

It is not available in Poland; we discuss similar solutions under “Specialist robots”.

Who it's for

Makes sense for: Engineers and historians of technology who want to learn about the evolution of teleoperated humanoids. R&D teams analyzing force feedback between operator and robot.

Less suited to: Anyone who wants a robot to do work: T-HR3 is not on sale, has a very elaborate operator station and does not act on its own. Not for companies looking for an autonomous humanoid for a shop floor; pick something from the roundup “Humanoid Robots in Factories 2026”.

Not for the home or a hospital either, even though Toyota names them as possible fields of application. Without a technical support team, a low-latency link and an operator who knows the system, the robot remains an exhibit. If you just want to see what the history of humanoids looks like, it is enough to know this design from the manufacturer's descriptions and videos.

Deployments

T-HR3 was a showcase of capabilities and is not offered commercially.

In the category of teleoperated humanoids, prototypes from Japan and the US appear, but most remain in labs. You will not find such robots in Poland; for those interested we suggest the overview “Polish Robotics Companies”, where we have collected domestic companies and integrators.

Punyo is Toyota's newer platform, this time an upper half of the body with tactile manipulation; a prototype.

Honda Avatar Robot is a teleoperated hand five times stronger than ASIMO's, controlled by gaze; the same philosophy, a different company. No autonomy and no price.

Valkyrie is NASA's research humanoid from 2013: 187 cm, 136 kg, 44 degrees of freedom. A design built with tasks in harsh environments in mind.

HRP-5P is an AIST prototype from 2018, 182 cm, 37 degrees of freedom; not for sale.

T-HR3 is Toyota's third-generation humanoid, unveiled in November 2017. The design stood 154 cm tall and weighed 75 kg, with 32 axes of motion and hands with ten fingers. From the start it was a teleoperated platform, not an autonomous one: the operator wore the Master Maneuvering System, an external station weighing 170 kg, with VR goggles and force feedback.

Toyota (founded in 1937) works on humanoids as part of a broader robotics strategy. No subsequent events tied to T-HR3 are documented, but seven years later, in 2024, a completely different project was shown: Punyo. The change of direction is telling: from remote control to soft, tactile grasping by a self-operating robot.