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HuRoC
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OPEN CALL / Pilot Fields Wanted FREE to register

Turn your “site”
into a humanoid
proving ground.

Shopping streets, small factories, vacant houses, public bathhouses, public spaces, tourism facilities — the challenge at your site can become the first "story" of robots in society.

HuRoC brings together the technology, talent, and teams to produce a pilot program tailored to each site.

Registration is free. Start with a casual conversation, even at the consideration stage.

  • Registration fee

    Free

    Considering a pilot? You’re welcome. Cost-sharing discussed individually

  • Pilot categories

    6+

    Shopping street / small factory / vacant house / public / tourism / education

  • Walk-along partners

    10+

    Government, universities, manufacturers, shopping streets, logistics

  • Expected pilot length

    1–6 mo.

    From short pilots to continuous trials

Register your pilot field (free) Talk to us first (free) See use cases

On the ground

Already taking shape, on real sites.

These are the kinds of fields we work with — shopping streets, small factories, vacant houses, public bathhouses, ward offices, and care facilities.

Each scene below imagines a humanoid at work in an everyday Ota City setting. Your site could become the next one.

A humanoid helps prepare to open a greengrocer in a Showa-era shopping street at dusk
Opening up, together, in a shopping street
A humanoid stands alongside skilled craftspeople at the morning meeting of an Ota City small factory
Joining the morning meeting at a small factory
Multiple generations gather at a living lab in a renovated Ota City vacant house, testing small prototypes with a humanoid
Co-creating at a vacant-house living lab
At the front desk of an Ota City public bathhouse, a humanoid shows a map to a foreign tourist
Multilingual guidance at the bathhouse desk
At an Ota City ward office counter, a humanoid assists a foreign resident with paperwork via tablet translation
Translation support at the ward office counter
At the dinner table of a care facility, a humanoid attends to an elderly woman at her meal
At the dinner table in a care facility

Who

If you have a "site" like these

Centered on Ota City, we are recruiting six types of fields. From a single facility or shop to an entire shopping street, a small-factory consortium, or government — reach out regardless of scale.

  • Shopping street

    Shopping streets · Retail · Restaurants

    Already collaborating with the Zoshiki Shopping Street Association. Strong on customer-flow trials during business hours.

    Possible use cases

    • Storefront greeting
    • Multilingual service
    • Shopping assistance
    • Bathhouse DX
    • Restaurant floor staff
  • Small factory

    Small factories · Manufacturing sites

    Through Ota City’s 3,500-company "nakama-mawashi" network, we cover everything from parts sourcing to retrofitting in one flow.

    Possible use cases

    • Machining assistance
    • Inventory transport
    • Safety patrol
    • Skill-transfer data capture
    • Unmanned night operation
  • Vacant house

    Vacant houses · Homes · Community halls

    Turning the ward’s vacant houses into community hubs. We jointly explore part of the renovation and operating costs.

    Possible use cases

    • Public cafe × living lab
    • Development station
    • Data collection center
    • Elderly watch-over
    • Childcare support
  • Government

    Public spaces · Government facilities

    Directly connected to the ward, associations, and unions. We can draw up scale-out models across multiple sites.

    Possible use cases

    • Information & counter support
    • Multilingual response
    • Disaster-stock management
    • Roving patrol
    • Community-building hub
  • Tourism

    Tourism · Lodging · Airport area

    Connecting to inbound visitor flows from Haneda (HND). Can collaborate with tourism associations and lodging operators.

    Possible use cases

    • Tour guide × inbound PR
    • Hotel concierge
    • In-airport guidance
    • Baggage transport
    • Emergency multilingual response
  • Education

    Education · Welfare · Healthcare

    Safe operation in coordination with our network of universities and experts (Digital Hollywood University, and others).

    Possible use cases

    • Learning support
    • Childcare assistance
    • Therapeutic & care watch-over
    • Rehabilitation exercise support
    • Safety watch-over

Usecases

Humanoid use cases in a shopping street

Use cases HuRoC has mapped by implementation difficulty. If there’s something on your site you’d say "I want this," it becomes an immediate entry point for technical validation.

●

Difficulty: Easy

  • Storefront greeting (drawing crowds with motion and voice)
  • Multilingual service (language selection at the entrance)
●

Difficulty: Moderate

  • Shopping assistance (carrying bags and accompanying)
  • Neighborhood guardian (roving patrol)
  • Bathhouse DX (reception, service, bath cleaning)
●

Difficulty: Advanced

  • Restaurant floor staff (taking orders and serving)

What we offer

What HuRoC brings

All we ask of the field is the "site's challenge" and the "space." Everything else — technology, talent, PR, and guidance on subsidies — we line up through the HuRoC network.

  • Co-design of the pilot plan

    HuRoC walks alongside you from robot operation scenarios and safety measures to risk assessment and KPI design.

  • Equipment & talent arrangement

    We arrange the robots, manufacturer partners, and validation staff needed for the pilot from the HuRoC network.

  • Media & PR exposure

    Linked with HuRoC Media (media.huroc.org) and the EXPO. We support PR before and after the pilot.

  • Advice on grants & subsidies

    We can advise on relevant ward, Tokyo, and national subsidies, as well as AM-project-related grants, in individual consultations.

Process

Five steps from application to pilot

"Gather the challenges, connect them with technology, and run the pilot" — based on the Zoshiki Shopping Street Association × HuRoC approach, optimized for each site.

  1. STEP 01 · Apr–Jun

    01

    Apply & talk

    Tell us about your site and challenges via the application form. The HuRoC office will visit and hear you out.

  2. STEP 02 · May–Jul

    02

    Case-building & team formation

    We match you with the right team of universities, small factories, and startups, and work out the pilot plan together.

  3. STEP 03 · Jul 17

    03

    Selection announcement

    Selected fields are announced on stage at HuRoC EXPO 2026 — a kickoff for attendees and media.

  4. STEP 04 · Aug onward

    04

    Pilot & event-ization

    Implementation on site. We walk alongside you through operations, data measurement, and improvement, and turn it into an event for the community, your organization, and government.

  5. STEP 05 · Ongoing

    05

    Scale-out

    Scale successful cases to other wards and municipalities, toward continuous implementation.

Vision · Vacant-house use

Vacant houses as proving grounds.
And then, a large-scale learning center.

PHASE 1

Vacant house → pilot house

Public cafe × living lab × development station. A hub for the local community. You can take part with even a single building.

  • · Developers and residents try out "how to use it" in the same space
  • · Operated as elderly watch-over, childcare support, and a community square
  • · Renovation and operating costs framed jointly with HuRoC
PHASE 2

Data collection center

The shortage of robot-learning data for home appliances, retail, and food service is a challenge shared worldwide. A vision to keep generating learning data from Ota City.

  • · Data from pilots is anonymized and turned into datasets
  • · AI learning data accumulated jointly with universities and manufacturers
  • · Considering the use of former elementary school sites and disused factories in the ward

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Q. Can sole proprietors or small shops apply?

Yes. We welcome applications regardless of scale — small shops in a shopping street, sole-proprietor small factories, individual vacant-house owners, and more. HuRoC forms a team to match your scale.

Q. Is there any cost to register or apply?

Registering and applying for a pilot field is completely free. Individual consultations and information requests at the consideration stage are all free as well. Costs once the implementation phase begins are discussed individually and agreed upon — ranging from cases where you only provide the space, to cases where the site bears part of the cost, depending on the content.

Q. Isn’t it dangerous? How is safety ensured?

We conduct a risk assessment before the pilot and design safety measures as needed — safety enclosures, staff supervision, out-of-hours operation, and so on. The office also supports insurance arrangements.

Q. How long does it take from application to start?

From application → hearing visit → case-building → pilot start, expect roughly two weeks to three months. If you aim to debut at EXPO 2026, we recommend applying by the end of June.

Q. Can a community or municipality apply?

Yes. We welcome applications and collaboration from shopping street associations, neighborhood associations, residents’ associations, and government departments. We also handle integrated proposals spanning multiple sites.

Registration & consultation are all free

Let us hear about
your site.

Registration, applications, and individual consultations are all free. Whether you fit the criteria, what kind of robot might suit you, when you could start — tell us about your site and its challenges at any stage, even an exploratory one.

Register your pilot field

Recommended

Fill out the form below — it takes about 3 minutes. Please note the form itself is in Japanese.

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  • Email or phone

    Email us at the address below, or call us. After an initial hearing we can switch to a visit or an online consultation.

    Write an email
📧 [email protected] Considering exhibiting at the EXPO? Start here →