Almost no one expects a robot to walk through an entire city, much less two, yet it was exactly what happened on the route between Suzhou and Shanghai on a day that became a silent milestone and could change the destiny of humanoid robotics.
AgiBot based in Shanghai took its expedition A2 out of the laboratory and put it in front of the real world, the machine traveled 106 km continuously and autonomously, that is, without anyone controlling it, only with its integrated device in command, the achievement was recognized by Guinness as the greatest distance traveled on foot by a humanoid robot and there were no treadmills or controlled corridors, they just went to the streets with all the unpredictability that these entail.
The project put the robot in front of surfaces that defy any balance algorithm, uneven asphalt, slippery tiles and even tactile floors built to guide the visually impaired, a significant part of which occurred during the night when the environment for a human being is no longer forgiving of any imperfection, but not for a machine.
The A2 kept going step by step, but the real turning point emerged in the way it managed its own power - the entire hike happened without shutting down, something made possible by a rapid hot-swap battery architecture. While many opt for integrated structural batteries, AgiBot chose interchangeable modules, technicians replaced the power module with the robot to an asset supported by an internal reserve that kept everything running.
A technical detail that directly attacks the nightmare of automation, downtime, and paves the way for continuous operations on 24-hour cycles.
At the end of the day, in the historic boom of Shanghai, the A2 arrived without significant damage, only natural wear on the rubber of the soles, its patented actuators, part of the Powerflow system, survived hundreds of thousands of load cycles without signs of fatigue, not bad for a humanoid of 1.75 cm, 55 kg and more than 49 grams of freedom, designed to fit in the same workspace as a real human.
The 106 km walk doesn't just seem like a record, it sounds like a frontier crossed, when mechanical resistance stops being the obstacle, the challenge moves to another place, the brains are already capable of transforming those metal bodies into truly useful workers.
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