A humanoid robot with a radically different waist design from conventional models—ATOMROBOT’s embodied intelligent ATOM01 (Tianbing No.1)—is answering a long-standing industry question through structural innovation that blends rigidity and flexibility: Can humanoid robots truly do real work?

From April 17 to 19, the 2026 China Humanoid Robot Ecosystem Conference was held at the Shanghai Auto Exhibition Center. The event, themed “Human–Robot Integration, Intelligent Manufacturing for the Future,” gathered experts, enterprises, and media from China and abroad, and is widely regarded as a key indicator of the transition of humanoid robots from “laboratory showcase” to “industrial deployment.” As the world’s first embodied humanoid robot featuring a parallel waist structure, ATOMROBOT ATOM01 drew significant attention from professional visitors at the booth.
 

Industrial-Grade Productivity
 

Most humanoid robots on the market today follow a human-like serial structure—bipedal walking with an upright spine. While such designs have made progress in dynamic balance and human resemblance, they commonly face critical limitations in real industrial scenarios such as manufacturing and logistics: weak payload capacity, insufficient waist rigidity, and poor adaptability to complex terrain.

ATOMROBOT took a different path. By combining a parallel waist structure with a wheeled omnidirectional mobile base, the robot is positioned directly for industrial applications.

“Humanoid robots are not meant to imitate how humans walk, but to do what humans find difficult, inefficient, or impossible to do.”

Instead of pursuing bipedal walking, ATOM01 adopts an omnidirectional chassis and a proprietary Stewart parallel waist, redefining force transmission paths and the allocation of motion degrees of freedom.

This design leads to a striking outcome: a maximum waist payload of 200 kg, an order of magnitude higher than comparable products. At the same time, the high rigidity of the parallel structure does not sacrifice flexibility. The robot features 26 active degrees of freedom, enabling micro-movements and multi-axis posture adjustments at the waist—achieving both strength and agility.

For customers in clean laboratories, automotive manufacturing, heavy assembly, and warehouse logistics, this means one robot can both handle heavy materials and maneuver efficiently in narrow spaces for inspection or delicate operations.

Fully Self-Developed Technology System
 

The core advantage of ATOM01 lies in its unique parallel waist as a physical foundation, combined with deep integration of AI decision-making and motion control algorithms. This enables the robot to simultaneously achieve high payload, high flexibility, and high precision—three engineering goals that traditional serial humanoid designs struggle to combine.

The symmetrically arranged 7-axis force-controlled robotic arms provide a single-arm payload of 12.5 kg and a reach of 686 mm. Force control precision supports tasks ranging from heavy handling to precision assembly.

A modular end-effector design allows quick switching between:

Two-finger grippers for high-speed rigid grasping

Five-finger dexterous hands with tactile sensors for fragile or irregular objects

This flexibility allows customers to adapt the robot to different processes without purchasing multiple specialized machines.

On the computing and perception side, the intelligent control unit is built on a 12-core Arm Cortex-A78AE architecture combined with an NVIDIA GPU, delivering 170 TOPS of AI computing power. With EtherCAT communication, millisecond-level axis synchronization is achieved across all 26 degrees of freedom.

The multi-modal perception system includes:

Sub-millimeter depth camera

High torque-density integrated joints

0.2° RMS IMU

Facial recognition capability

The omnidirectional chassis integrates LiDAR SLAM with visual fusion navigation, dual steering wheels, and passive casters, achieving zero turning radius and high mobility in narrow industrial passages and unstructured environments.

“The starting point of ATOM01’s design is to enable robots to truly undertake high-intensity, high-precision, and high-risk tasks in industrial environments. The parallel waist provides the physical foundation for all of this,” said ATOMROBOT engineers.

Parallel Robot Workstation Also on Display

At the exhibition, ATOMROBOT also showcased its MINI Parallel Robot Workstation, integrating a Delta robot, industrial camera, and intelligent algorithms to complete small-part recognition, flipping, and placement in one seamless process.

This exhibit represents a natural extension of ATOMROBOT’s parallel technology matrix—from high-speed precision Delta parallel robots to high-payload, high-flexibility humanoid parallel waist structures. The company has established a complete product spectrum and modular technology platform spanning:

Core components → Specialized high-speed industrial robots → Embodied intelligent humanoid robots

This capability enables flexible technology combinations tailored to manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and service industries.

During the exhibition, ATOMROBOT delivered a keynote speech at the international forum titled “Riding the Trend: ATOMROBOT’s Exploration and Applications in Embodied Intelligent Humanoid Robots.” Experts, industry representatives, and media gathered to discuss cutting-edge trends in the field.

ATOMROBOT will continue showcasing ATOM01 and the MINI Parallel Robot Workstation tomorrow. Visitors are welcome at Booth N4040 at the Shanghai Auto Exhibition Center to observe the parallel waist structure up close and explore possibilities for customized collaboration—witnessing a key step forward for Chinese humanoid robots from “able to move” to “able to work.”

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