The 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games concluded in Beijing on 26 August. The university-enterprise joint team formed by Harbin Engineering University (HEU) and Swancor Advanced Materials Co., Ltd. participated in the event with their entry “Qiyuan H1” humanoid robot. The robot independently completed all assigned tasks and won the national runner-up title in the Home Service Scenario track.
The HEU team was supervised by Professor CHI Haihong and Associate Researcher XU Dexin from the College of Intelligent Systems Science and Engineering, and comprised 7 master’s students: GAO Da, REN Yi, DU Hao, LI Haichao, YANG Ruqi, XUE Haowen and CHEN Chuanfeng. Swancor Advanced Materials Co., Ltd., the cooperative enterprise, focuses on the research and development of lightweight humanoid robots, smart home scenario implementation and developer ecosystem building, and is recognised as an innovative benchmark in China’s consumer-grade humanoid robot sector.
In 2026, HEU and Swancor Advanced Materials officially signed a cooperation agreement for an internship and practice base, launching joint talent training in the field of embodied intelligence. Leveraging the Home Service Scenario track of the World Humanoid Robot Games, the two sides selected outstanding students to join the enterprise for collaborative research and development.
The Home Service Scenario track was a newly added event at this year’s Games, and also one of the tracks with the highest task difficulty and strongest technical comprehensiveness. The competition comprehensively evaluates humanoid robots’ capabilities in environmental perception, flexible manipulation, task planning, whole-body coordinated control and embodied intelligence reasoning, and is widely regarded in the industry as the “ultimate testing ground” for the civilian application of humanoid robots.
The “Qiyuan H1” robot of the HEU- Swancor joint team, powered by the software and hardware system jointly developed by the university and the enterprise, delivered excellent intelligent performance throughout the competition.
The World Humanoid Robot Games is the world’s first international comprehensive science and technology sports event dedicated to humanoid robot competitions. Held from 22 to 26 August over five days, this edition featured 51 competition events divided into two categories: competitive races and scenario-based races.
HEU has long adhered to its “SMON” educational characteristics, focused on industrial transformation and oriented towards the development needs of future industries. The university explores new paths for industry-education integration and innovation-driven entrepreneurship education, integrates enterprise and social resources into its curriculum, and upholds an integrated practical teaching system consisting of “theoretical courses – comprehensive experiments – internship and practice – innovation competitions”. Driven by competition events, HEU breaks down barriers to university-enterprise integration, continuously improves students’ innovation capacity and engineering practice ability, and strives to cultivate reliable, top-notch and innovative talents for the new era.
