At CES, a variety of robots with different functions are already quite common. However, whether it’s educational toy robots, logistics or guide robots, home cleaning robots, or the current popular humanoid robots, they all fall under the same category in terms of their technical paradigm — “rigid” robots, which use rigid materials, electrical joints, and various complex sensors. Rigid robots are already commonly used but only cover the tip of the iceberg of the vast range of industries and scenarios. To truly integrate into human production and life, and serve more industries and scenarios, they still face challenges in adaptability, safe interaction, and cost.

From “Specialized” to “General Purpose”, The Shared Dilemma of Different Robots

With breakthroughs in AI and other technologies, the development of robots has been advancing rapidly in recent years. Industrial robots, service robots, and humanoid robots are entering the public’s view and playing significant roles. However, it’s important to note that most commercially mature and widely used robot products today have a “specialized” nature. For example, industrial robots are confined to industrial production lines; the Da Vinci surgical robots are limited to medical surgery; even commonly seen cleaning robots have relatively singular functions.

These types of robots are specialized robots, usually designed for specific tasks or application scenarios, and are highly professional and customized. Their advantage lies in being optimized for specific tasks, ensuring optimal performance in specific environments. For instance, welding robots and medical assistance robots achieve high precision and efficiency in task execution, delivering immense value to the industry.

In contrast, general-purpose robots are highly flexible, widely applicable, and multifunctional, capable of performing various tasks across different application scenarios. They are not confined to specific tasks like traditional specialized robots but can carry out diverse operations and adapt to various working environments and operational needs, offering flexibility, safety, and efficiency.

However, the core significance of robotic technology development for human society lies in the ability to bring about an industrial revolution in productivity. This determines that the ultimate goal of robot application is to serve human economy and life on a large scale, empowering a wide array of industries, rather than being confined to a single scenario. From this perspective, specialized robots that are limited to specific scenarios are not capable of fulfilling this important mission. In contrast, general-purpose robots have greater potential for cross-industry and cross-scenario use, but their exploration into large-scale, commercial application is still slow due to current technological limitations.

For example, humanoid robots, which are considered representative of general-purpose robots, show great application potential due to their unique forms, adaptability to various scenarios, and broad prospects. However, they still have a long way to go before truly being deployed on a large scale.

On one hand, humanoid robots still face major deficiencies in perception, decision-making, and motion control, especially due to the lack of truly adaptable AI models for general use. Therefore, their applicability is insufficient to support large-scale deployment in real-world environments. On the other hand, the development and production costs of humanoid robots are high, making mass deployment challenging. Additionally, safe interaction remains a critical challenge that needs to be addressed before humanoid robots can be used widely. Ensuring that robots do not cause harm while interacting with humans is a key area of ongoing research.

As one of the typical representatives of general-purpose robots, humanoid robots are still struggling to achieve large-scale application. Similarly, other types of robots, whether specialized or general-purpose, are still far from large-scale deployment. What are the challenges they face in this process?

In fact, by observing the difficult path to application of humanoid robots, we can identify two crucial factors in the large-scale deployment of robots: adaptability and cost. At the core of these issues lies the current underlying robotics technology.

Currently, most of the robots commonly seen by the public, whether humanoid robots representing general-purpose robots or specialized robots used in fields like industry, share common characteristics: they are made of metal materials, driven by motors, and equipped with numerous sensors, controllers, reducers, and other components. From a technological paradigm perspective, these robots are all "rigid robots," facing similar challenges.

For example, in complex scenarios where direct physical interaction with the work target or even with humans is required, robots using the above-mentioned technological routes, due to their high rigidity, often struggle to adjust their force and range of motion flexibly. This can easily lead to accidental injuries. Take humanoid robots used in elderly care as an example: when performing tasks such as assisting the elderly with walking, helping people with disabilities in daily life, or participating in emergency rescues, despite their powerful strength and high precision, if they lack fine force control technology and human safety perception systems, they may exert excessive force on the human body, leading to accidents such as collisions, pinching, or falls.

Soft Robots: The Ideal Form for Large-scale Application

For years, the robotics industry has been exploring more innovative technological routes to achieve the multi-scenario, large-scale application of robots. One such promising technology is soft robotics, which has developed rapidly over the past decade.

Soft robots are considered the next-generation core technology of robots, contrasted with rigid robots that typically use electrical joints, metal materials, complex sensors, and precision manufacturing techniques. Thanks to innovations in fluid-driven systems, materials science, and other fields, soft robots offer advantages such as lower cost, greater flexibility, safe interaction, and ease of deformation.

With its inherent advantages in core technology, soft robotics demonstrates superior interaction safety, high adaptability, and significant cost advantages. Soft robots are better suited for complex, dynamic scenarios that require extensive interaction with humans and the environment. This makes soft robotics a more ideal solution for achieving the mission of large-scale robots serving human life.

Soft robotics technology can be integrated with many existing specialized robots to enrich product forms and expand capabilities, while also creating new types of robots with diverse forms and functions for more industries. For example, some medical surgery-specific soft robots can reduce damage to patient tissues and improve surgical accuracy and safety. Furthermore, soft robots can be designed to take various forms, such as crawling, flying, or mounted on different platforms to meet diverse operational needs.

By using soft joints and fluid-driven systems, humanoid robots can not only reduce costs but also mimic human joint movements and muscle contractions, enabling smoother, more coordinated movements. This change not only enhances the practicality of humanoid robots but also strengthens their ability to interact with humans safely and affectionately, reducing the risk of injury during human-robot interaction.

As technology continues to advance, the market for soft robots has seen significant growth in recent years. According to a report from YH Research, the global soft robot market was valued at approximately 3.2 billion RMB in 2023, with technological innovation playing a key role in driving market growth. The market is expected to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 57.9% over the next six years, reaching nearly 80 billion RMB by 2030. As a result, an increasing number of robots based on flexible materials and biomimetic designs will appear in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, and more.

Pliabot® Technology: Enabling Soft Robots to Serve Every Industry

Despite the enormous market potential and wide application prospects of soft robots, they still face challenges in load-bearing capacity, control stability, and limited technological maturity. Currently, only a few companies worldwide have achieved partial commercial applications of soft robotics, mainly in industrial and medical fields, with simple forms such as grippers and conduits.

Wisson Robotics, after over a decade of research and innovation in soft robotics, has pioneered Pliabot® technology, which significantly enhances the commercialization capabilities of soft robots, enabling them to serve a broad range of industries and accelerate their commercial adoption.

Pliabot® technology, derived from soft robotics, provides robots with “Emulate Human Muscles, Transcend Human Capabilities.” By replicating characteristics of human muscle’s pliability by utilizing soft bionic muscles and neuronic intelligence, powered by pneumatic or hydraulic actuation, and combining "neuronic-cerebellar-cerebral-cloud" AI systems, Pliabot® integrates full-stack innovations across the robot body and intelligent systems. This technology retains the adaptability, safety, and cost advantages of soft robotics while addressing their limitations in operational capacity. It achieves an exceptional load-to-weight ratio and exceeds human capabilities in durability and flexibility.

The “Emulate Human Muscles” feature is key to supporting multi-scenario applications. For example, when soft robots are tasked with grabbing objects, their soft bodies often lack enough force to stabilize the grasp. In contrast, Pliabot® adopts a "rigid-soft fusion" approach, incorporating "bones" and "spines" to enhance structural integrity without sacrificing flexibility or safety. This design achieves a balanced state of robustness and delicacy, enabling soft robots to meet diverse operational demands with unprecedented stability and adaptability.

To accelerate the adoption of soft robotics across industries, Pliabot® technology builds a modular development platform to reuse standard modules, which enables the versatile development of Pliabot® bionic joints, single arm, dual arms and bodies. These components could easily integrate with mobile chassis, lifts, assembly lines, wearable devices, unmanned aerial vehicles and even robotic dogs and humanoid robots, which allows Pliabot® to address practical and large-scale application needs across industries such as high-altitude operations, new energy autonomous driving, industrial manufacturing, commercial services, and home care. It combines near-term practicality with long-term scalability, showcasing exceptional generalization and commercialization potential.

Currently, Wisson Robotics has launched two major product lines based on its Pliabot® technology. These include the cross-industry general-purpose aerial Pliabot® robot that combines soft robotics with drones, and the automatic charging robot combining soft robotics with autonomous driving. These products are widely used in diverse operational scenarios across over ten industries, including high-altitude cleaning, intelligent vehicle charging, new energy operations and maintenance, emergency rescue, environmental protection, and more, helping to free humans from arduous and complex tasks.

For example, the Orion AP3-P3 Pliabot® Aerial Tethered Cleaning Robot is designed for high-altitude cleaning tasks, such as cleaning building facades and tall towers. It significantly enhances operational efficiency while liberating “spider men” and empowering industry transformation. The Orion AP30-N1 Pliabot® Aerial Manipulator breaks the limitations of traditional drone applications, overcoming the barrier from "observation" to "action." This platform can perform aerial tasks like heavy-load grabbing and transfer, cross-terrain precise delivery, and gas-liquid-solid sampling, offering innovative, reliable, safe, and efficient aerial solutions for sectors like emergency rescue, low-altitude logistics, security management, and power grid maintenance. Meanwhile, the Monos Pliabot® Automatic Charging Robot features a unique technological approach, delivering disruptive performance and cost advantages. It is highly suited for large-scale commercial deployment, with its commercialization progressing rapidly, thus providing new momentum for the intelligent vehicle experience and the development of the new energy vehicle industry.

While developing innovative robots, Wisson Robotics is also committed to advancing its core technologies. Leveraging the unique advantages of Pliabot® technology, the company is actively expanding its product lines and exploring the integration of soft robotics with general-purpose humanoid robots, industrial robots, and home service robots. This will help robots unlock their full potential, providing low-cost, highly adaptive, innovative robotic service solutions across industries and accelerating the arrival of the robotic era.