Automation Robot dog from China attracts attention

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When Elon Musk tweets about a robot dog from China on X, the product is sure to get some attention. This is exactly what happened to the "B2-W," a four-legged robot from the Chinese manufacturer Unitree.

Henrik Bork, long-time China correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Frankfurter Rundschau, is Managing Director at Asia Waypoint, a consulting agency specializing in China, based in Beijing. 

Shortly after the company from Hangzhou released a video featuring its latest robot dog, the four-legged friend's impressive stunts went viral. Until even Musk shared the video.

B2-W can not only walk and climb like previous generations of its kind. In the Unitree video, the robot is shown carrying a person over mountainous terrain, even down steep slopes, making it conceivable for rescue missions in the mountains, and potentially for military operations as well.

In the short film, the robot dog performs somersaults, effortlessly switches from four legs into a handstand, wades through rivers, and climbs up a waterfall. It descends a mountain slope with a 60-degree incline as effortlessly as if it were an avalanche dog in training:

The video reflects "updates of our internal algorithms for better functionality," a company spokesperson from Unitree is quoted as saying. The B2-W is already being produced in series, and the hardware remains unchanged.

The company, which also manufactures humanoid robots, has already released a number of robot dogs over the past few years, including the models XDog, Laikago, AlienGo, A1, Go1, Go2, and B2.

What the robot dog can do

• The robot dog can jump from a height of 6.23 feet and land softly, as well as climb over obstacles up to 15.75 inches high. Unloaded, it runs at a top speed of 12.43 mph. That's almost half as fast as Usain Bolt during his world record 328.08-feet run—except the robot dog can maintain this pace longer than the sprinter from Jamaica.

• On flat terrain, B2-W can jump a few meters. Compared to this electronic predator, the good old R2-D2 from Star Wars seems like a cute Lego toy in retrospect.

• According to its manufacturer, the battery-powered, approximately 99.21 lbs high-tech device with wheels on each of its four legs has a range of 31.07 miles when loaded with a payload of 88.18 lbs before it needs to be recharged.

• Unitree has equipped its latest model with current sensors, including lidar, powerful depth sensors, and optical cameras.

• What has impressed many observers most is its "precise motor control needed to safely carry a person over the roughest terrain," as the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong puts it.

Where and how robot dogs are already being used in China

In Beijing, for several months, the first robot dog from Unitree has been used in a cable tunnel near the southern Third Ring Road. It regularly crawls to specific checkpoints with a high-resolution camera and a robotic arm and can perform repairs on-site if necessary, reports the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.

In the Chinese city of Yichang at the Three Gorges Dam, the police have been taking their first robot police dog on patrol since May 2024. Side by side with real police dogs, it is used for initial contact with suspects, reports the Global Times.

Rising demand expected

According to Unitree, there is also a rapidly growing market for quadruped robots in factory inspections and firefighting. Relatively little is known about custom designs for the military, but during joint maneuvers by the Chinese and Cambodian military, a Unitree "Go2" is said to have participated as a scout and a "B1" with an assault rifle, according to the South China Morning Post.

However, this potential "dual-use" character of robot dogs applies to all models of this new type worldwide. The US military is also already testing four-legged, battery-powered fighters. It is not a Chinese peculiarity that modern technologies are almost always conceivable for both civilian and military applications.

And for both civilian and military applications, there is expected to be, according to most observers, a significant demand worldwide for the new species in the coming years. The China Daily cites market research reports indicating that the global market for robot dogs could grow from just under three billion currently to more than 46 billion US dollars by 2031.

It probably also makes sense if humanoid robots, which, like humans, must manage with only two legs, can also be accompanied by a more agile and better climbing four-legged robot on a leash in the future.