In October 2015, Honda engineers submitted papers to the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) on what would later become the prototype E2DR disaster response robot. Early renders showed a shared design language with Asimo, but pictures from 2018 show the robot with a distinctive orange paint job. In the first paper the robot is still refered to as Asimo.
E2-DR’s actuators contain a brushless DC motor, harmonic drive, and a custom torque sensor. This torque sensor is the main difference compared to Asimo. Using torque control can greatly lower impact forces.
More information can be found in Compact and High Performance Torque-Controlled Actuators and its Implementation to Disaster Response Robot
E2-DR has an ECU, electronic control unit, for managing motion control in addition to a recognition ECU. These ECU’s are powered by an Intel i7. The recognition ECU runs Windows while the Motion Control ECU runs VxWorks.