From Technology Conceptto Commercial Deployment – Pliabot® Embodied SoftRobotics Solves Large-Scale Challenges in Automated Charging
On May 13, the 5th Shanghai International EV Charging & Swap andPV-ESS-Storage-Charging Exhibition (CPSE Shanghai 2026) grand opened at theShanghai Automobile Exhibition Center. This year’sevent brought together over 800 leading domestic and international companies,covering the entire ecosystem of “PV, storage,charging, swapping, inspection, and operation” – fromcore charging modules, ultra-fast chargers, and intelligent charging robots tovehicle-grid interaction systems and charging operation platforms. It hasbecome a hub for technology launches, business negotiations, and industryexchanges in the EV charging sector, attracting more than 50,000 professionalvisitors.
Wei Ying, Co-
founder of Wisson Robotics, was invited to speak at theCharging & Swapping Product Technology Development Forum. He delivered akeynote titled “From Technology Concept to CommercialDeployment: The Industry Value of Pliabot® Automated Charging Solutions.” In his presentation, Wei shared with attendees how Wisson’s Pliabot® technology provides a foundational and overwhelminglysuperior interaction solution for servicing unstructured environments acrossvarious human habitats. He highlighted the breakthrough progress of the“Pliabot® Charge” automated charging solution in driving large‑scale commercial adoption, and gave a preview of Wisson’s home charging productplanned for release later this year.
Wei Ying pointed out that with the rapid proliferation of unmannedterminals such as Robotaxi and autonomous delivery vehicles, the “separation ofhuman and vehicle” has turned unmanned recharging from a long‑term need into an immediate necessity. However, while vehicles haveachieved “driverless” operation on the road,they still require a human to plug in the gun when arriving at a chargingstation. This “last‑meter”gap has become the biggest bottleneck in achieving a fully closed‑loop smart mobility operation.
Faced with the development bottleneck in large‑scale deployment of automated charging technology, Wei emphasizedthat overcoming four major barriers – safe interaction, high fault tolerance,environmental protection, and ease of deployment/maintenance – directly determineswhether automated charging can truly achieve large‑scale commercial adoption. In response, Wisson Robotics has chosen afundamentally different technological path: Pliabot® soft robotics. Thistechnology uses soft bionic materials to form Pliabot® muscles and Pliabot®arms, driven by pneumatic pressure. Combined with neuronic intelligencedistributed throughout the muscles, it gives robots the ability to sense andinteract with the external environment in real time. Unlike traditional rigidrobots, Pliabot® arms can flexibly adjust posture and force, mimicking thecompliant motion characteristics of human arms. Together with a vision‑tactile AI system, they achieve adaptive, gentle error correction.
What is most noteworthy is the contrast in precision requirements:conventional solutions drive ever‑higher precision, which leads to lower generalization and faulttolerance. This not only makes plugging/unplugging more prone to failure due tovehicle model variations, parking conditions, or external disturbances, butalso makes it difficult to adapt to different guns, charging posts, and cables,while imposing stringent deployment and operating environment requirements. Instark contrast, Pliabot® embodied soft robotics uses physical compliance todramatically improve system adaptability. Combined with real‑world data‑driven embodiedAI, it achieves low data demand, high success rate, and strong generalization,while significantly reducing precision requirements. This allows it to easilyhandle various vehicle models, guns, charging posts, cables, and deploymentscenarios, and maintain an extremely high task success rate even when externalconditions change.
In August 2025, Wisson Robotics launched the nation’s first fullypublic “Robotics+” automated charging pop‑up experience station at ICD Mall in Chengdu. Using Wisson’s “Pliabot®Charge”automated charging solution, the station operated for 30 days with highutilization, achieving a per‑operation successrate of over 99.9%, adapting to 100+ vehicle models, serving 1,000+ usersessions per robot per month, and maintaining 100% safe operations. At the sametime, a nationwide deployment network is expanding rapidly. Multipledemonstration and operation sites have been established in Beijing, Shenzhen,and other cities, with ongoing growth in station scale and robot count.
Currently, Wisson’s “Pliabot® Charge” automated charging solution isavailable in fixed and sliding configurations, suitable for scenarios rangingfrom single‑point testing tounmanned ports, mining areas, and Robotaxi fleets. Wei Ying stated that Wissonis targeting “full coverage of unmanned drivingscenarios” as the strategic goal for its automatedcharging business line. Through deep collaboration with OEMs, charging stationoperators, energy infrastructure providers, unmanned operation companies, and localgovernments, Wisson is accelerating the deployment of scenario‑specific solutions to help customers across various industries anduse cases realize their visions of unmanned operation.