China-based robotics firm UBTech has demonstrated a humanoid robot with the ability to change its own battery, in what it called a world first.
The demonstration video shows the Shenzhen-headquartered firm’s Walker S2 robot walking over to a charging station, removing a depleted battery from its back, placing it into a charging station and replacing it with a charged unit.
The robots are designed to work in factories, amongst other use cases, and the feature means that in theory they would be able to work around the clock without human intervention.
Production lines
UBTech has tested Walker robots on production lines operated by several Chinese electric car makers, including BYD, Nio and Zeekr, CNEVPost reported.
The Walker S2 unit is designed to maximise productivity by including two battery packs, meaning it can switch from one to the other when one is depleted, and can replace depleted units.
The battery-replacement process takes about three minutes, with the batteries designed to plug in with a simple USB-like connection.
The firm is based in Shenzhen, China’s equivalent to Silicon Valley, which has more than 1,600 robotics companies.
Last week the city rolled out a team of delivery robots that can restock 7-Eleven stores located inside subway stations, according to local media reports.
The project involves robots riding subway trains to carry goods to stores.
China’s government has prioritised industries including robotics and AI as it seeks to boost key high-tech fields, a policy that has raised concerns in the US that it could compete with US firms.
Humanoid robots
Electric car firm Tesla, the US market leader in humanoid robotics, is aiming to mass-produce its Optimus robots for a variety of uses, and has prioritised robots along with autonomous driving as its future drivers of growth.
In March carmaker Mercedes-Benz said it was trialling humanoid robots from Texas-based start-up Apptronik for some tasks on its production lines in the latest show of interest in the field, where companies are trying to apply the latest AI technologies to the physical world.
In addition to Tesla, Apptronik competes with other start-ups such as Figure AI, Agility Robotics and 1X Technologies.
Facebook parent Meta Platforms said in February it wants to make AI-powered humanoid robots.