Sharpa has announced that its Wave tactile robot hands have been integrated into the Unitree H2 Plus humanoid robot reference design, making it the first dexterous humanoid platform built on Nvidia’s Isaac GR00T development framework to feature the company’s tactile manipulation technology.
The companies say the configuration is designed to help robotics developers and researchers accelerate the development of humanoid robot skills by providing a validated hardware and software platform that combines dexterous manipulation, tactile sensing, simulation, training, and deployment tools.
The move comes as interest in humanoid robots and physical AI continues to grow, with developers seeking ways to reduce the complexity of integrating hardware, collecting training data, running simulations, and deploying robot capabilities in real-world environments.
According to Sharpa, the H2 Plus platform combines its Wave robot hands with Unitree’s humanoid robot hardware, Nvidia onboard computing technology, and Nvidia Isaac GR00T development workflows into a single reference design.
David Li, founder of Sharpa, says: “Our vision is to make robots genuinely productive – by advancing fine manipulation skills through dexterous, tactile hardware and the AI models that power them.
“Partnering with Unitree and Nvidia on a humanoid robot reference design and end-to-end development solution is a meaningful step toward deploying robots that can perform real work, in real settings.”
The platform features dual Sharpa Wave five-finger hands with 22 degrees of freedom per hand, bringing the robot’s total to 75 degrees of freedom across the body and hands. Sharpa says the hands incorporate high-resolution tactile sensing with more than 1,000 sensing points per fingertip.
The system is built on the Unitree H2 humanoid platform and includes Nvidia Jetson AGX Thor onboard computing hardware.
Spencer Huang, director of product for robotics at Nvidia, says: “Dexterous hands are essential for humanoid robots to perform useful manipulation tasks in the real world.
“With Sharpa Wave tactile five-finger hands, Nvidia Isaac GR00T and Isaac Teleop, Unitree H2 Plus gives developers a reference design for training robot skills that require touch, control and precision.”
Developers using the platform will be able to collect demonstration data, simulate and train manipulation policies using Nvidia Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab, and deploy trained skills on physical robots with what the companies describe as a minimal simulation-to-reality gap.
The announcement highlights the growing importance of dexterous manipulation and tactile sensing as the robotics industry seeks to move humanoid robots beyond simple demonstrations and toward practical industrial and commercial applications.
