StarBot USA introduced the wheeled humanoid robot StarBot Nova for the service industry
English translation from Unibot. Source published 2026-10-28.
StarBot Nova is a wheeled service humanoid. It was developed by StarBot USA of Santa Barbara, California, for use in restaurants, hotels and retail spaces.
Characteristics and layout
Height - 152 centimeters, weight - 32 kilograms. At the bottom there is a differential drive on wheels, at the top there are two articulated arms, each with seven degrees of freedom. It is the wheelbase that provides the robot with mobility - it does not have walking legs.
This is what is stated in the specifications: maximum speed 4.3 kilometers per hour, load capacity 5 kilograms, operation without recharging - ten hours.
What Nova can really do
Proven physical skills include avoiding obstacles and sorting goods. The robot drives on electric motors and sees the world through Intel RealSense-class depth cameras and a regular RGB camera. The gray body, humanoid top and mobile platform are all designed for commercial premises.
Navigation includes protective measures: obstacle avoidance in real time, speed limit in crowds and emergency stop. Safety validation, however, is carried out separately for each implementation. And this is important: in restaurants, hotels and shops, people and objects share the same cramped space.
Sorting goods provides a use for both arms, although the assessment of manipulations remains at a preliminary level. Together, this makes the Nova interesting for testing mobile sorting tasks in commercial interiors.
Price and status
Nova is listed as a prototype. The published price is 20 thousand dollars, plus you can request conditions separately. StarBot released it in December 2025 as a first-generation service robot and has already tested it in a busy restaurant dining room.
This commercial context gives the platform a specific area for improvement. But prototype status and early skill assessment are still important factors for those thinking about purchasing.
The main thing in Nova is the combination of a wheelbase with two articulated arms in a service humanoid format. For organizations eyeing this category, Nova is an early platform to evaluate obstacle avoidance and product sorting at a specific site. It does not demonstrate mature, general-purpose robotic labor.