IIT Kharagpur and Robovate Unveil Astra One Humanoid Robot for Indian Manufacturing - RobotWale News

Indigenous Humanoid Platform Launched for Manufacturing Logistics

IIT Kharagpur and Robovate have jointly unveiled Astra One, an indigenous humanoid robot platform designed specifically for Indian manufacturing and logistics workflows. The announcement was made on October 24, 2024, at the Indian Robotics Conference in New Delhi. The robot marks a significant milestone in India’s push toward domestic automation hardware, reducing reliance on imported robotic arms and mobile manipulators.

Technical Specifications and AI Integration

Astra One features a twenty eight degree of freedom articulated chassis, custom designed torque dense actuators, and a dual camera stereo vision system powered by edge AI compute modules. The platform integrates a proprietary perception stack that enables real time object detection, grasp planning, and autonomous navigation in unstructured warehouse environments. Developers can access the robot via ROS two Humble interface, allowing third party researchers and system integrators to deploy custom manipulation algorithms without hardware modification.

Pricing and India Market Deployment

The company has priced Astra One at ₹12 lakh per unit for domestic buyers, with educational and startup licensing available at ₹8.5 lakh. Bulk procurement for automotive and electronics manufacturing sectors will qualify for tiered discounts under the government’s PLI scheme for advanced robotics. Initial pilot deployments are scheduled for Q2 2025 across three mid sized factories in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Robovate has also partnered with regional engineering colleges to establish a humanoid robotics training lab, ensuring a skilled workforce for future maintenance and AI model fine tuning.

Industry Impact and Future Roadmap

The launch addresses a critical gap in India’s industrial automation landscape, where labor shortages and rising operational costs have accelerated demand for flexible robotics. Astra One’s modular design allows rapid reconfiguration for pick and place, quality inspection, and material handling tasks. The development team plans to release an open source dataset of warehouse manipulation trajectories in early 2025, encouraging broader academic and commercial innovation. Industry analysts note that competitive domestic pricing and localized support infrastructure could position Astra One as a viable alternative to European and American humanoid systems in emerging markets.