"The Robot Arms 'Dominating' the World Robot Conference, and Their 'Superhuman Partners' Behind the Scenes" | Yunqi Capital
Starting from the Endgame of the Robotics World
Coffee robots, massage robots, food delivery robots — if you visited the World Robot Conference (WRC) currently underway in Beijing, you'd probably come away with the same thought we did: so many "people"!
Look closer, and you'll spot a distinctive black-and-white robotic arm on many of the exhibits. It comes from RealMan, a Yunqi Capital Series A portfolio company. As an industry leader in ultra-lightweight humanoid robotic arms, RealMan's embodied intelligence ecosystem keeps expanding. At this year's WRC, you could see not only multiple product combinations at RealMan's own booth, but also their arms integrated into more than 20 other exhibits.
How much future can one ultra-lightweight humanoid robotic arm unlock? In this edition of Yunqi Capital, we share the entrepreneurial journey of Zheng Suibing (Eric), founder and CEO of RealMan.
This article is republished with permission from Beijing Youth Weekly (ID: BQ54321). Please contact the original source for reprints.
Original title: Zheng Suibing (Eric): Bringing Us to the "Endgame" of the Robot World
Author: Zhang Na
Zheng Suibing (Eric)
Founder and CEO of RealMan. Over ten years of experience in the robotic arm industry. The first person globally to define and mass-produce ultra-lightweight humanoid robotic arms.
Sixteen years ago, as a student, Eric built his first robot — a tomato-picking machine that could roam greenhouse tunnels, identify ripe tomatoes, and harvest them into its basket. As the leader of one of China's earliest teams focused on lightweight humanoid robotic arms, Eric's path of innovation stemmed from revolutionary thinking about industrial robotic arms. Before 2010, robotic arms were characterized by their bulkiness and need for physical isolation. The emergence of lightweight robots from NASA and the German Aerospace Center showed Eric the future of robotic arms: safe, portable, and capable of coexisting with humans.
RealMan operates out of a factory building in western Beijing. The raw, unpolished industrial architecture lends a bohemian quality to this decidedly futuristic robotics company.
"When we first started out, we were in a 60-square-meter residential apartment. There was no air conditioning, so we tied frozen water bottles underneath our computer towers to keep them cool." Founder Eric recalls those early days wearing a RealMan Intelligent Technology t-shirt. The founding was in 2018 — just six years ago.
"At that time, the market lacked truly future-oriented, human-centric robot products. Many manufacturers were still chasing foreign technology, trying to replicate existing achievements at lower cost, but few were thinking about the ultimate form of human-robot coexistence. So we decided to start from the 'endgame' — the final destination — and explore and practice this future vision."
Just as Elon Musk faced what seemed like an insurmountable problem with energy density for electric vehicles, he found the key insight: the energy density logic of small lithium battery cells used in flashlights or children's toy cars could scale up. By connecting small cells one by one, he built a large battery that made his vision possible, solving the energy density challenge for EVs. Musk's great imagination brought us the new energy vehicle era we live in today.
Eric is doing something similar. "When discussing the ideal intelligent agent, we envisioned something that could not only process images and text, but also integrate with the human body to perform precise operations in the physical world." He identified the core technical breakthrough: his robotic arm designs follow humanoid principles to adapt to human living environments. The lightweight design allows easy mounting on various mobile platforms — AGV chassis, quadruped robots, or humanoid robots — while maintaining low power consumption. The arm weighs just 6kg, and only 7.2kg including the controller. It can move flexibly on a lift mechanism, easily reaching items from ground level to 2 meters high.
The arm has a rated payload of 5kg and maximum payload of 10kg, far exceeding the payload-to-weight ratio of typical industrial and collaborative robotic arms, which generally range from 1:3 to 1:5. This year, the company's innovation team is pushing further to achieve an inverted ratio of 3:1 to 5:1 — meaning a 5kg arm body could lift 15kg to 25kg, outperforming the human arm.
Tracing back to the early days of founding in 2018, Eric identified three bottlenecks preventing robots from integrating into daily life: generalization capability, manipulation capability, and cost. Early robots could perform specific tasks through programming, but only in preset environments; change the environment, and they were helpless. This stemmed from their lack of adaptability and learning ability. However, with technological advances, particularly in AI, and especially with the emergence of natural language processing tools like ChatGPT, robots' generalization capabilities have dramatically improved. They can now understand and execute complex nested logic tasks, no longer confined to single scenarios.
What Eric currently pursues is giving robots manipulation capabilities and flexibility comparable to humans. Ultra-lightweight robotic arms, both portable and capable of handling substantial loads, greatly expand robots' application range. Such designs enable robots to perform various daily tasks like humans, from simple housework to complex operations, with ease. Beyond this, RealMan has successfully reduced manufacturing costs through technological innovation and optimized production processes, making robots more accessible and acceptable to the general public.
When asked what excites him about robotics R&D, Eric says it's seeing his concepts become reality one by one — finding the path to the future when everyone else thought it impossible. The robots of the future should look like this.
So in this factory building, you can see engineers conducting all kinds of interesting experiments: a robotic arm connected to a knife helping someone cut meat; two arms working in tandem to make coffee, even achieving latte art... Eric's robots are quietly entering people's lives.
"The ultimate form of robots should be highly adapted to human living and working environments. They should be as flexible and intelligent as humans, seamlessly integrating into various scenarios. This is precisely our original intention in developing ultra-lightweight humanoid robotic arms — to make robots partners of humanity, jointly creating a better future." Eric says.
Q: To realize your vision of robots truly entering millions of households, what aspects do you focus on?
A: When discussing robot technology, we address several key layers. First, recognition capability is fundamental — just as you immediately recognize a water bottle when you see it. Next comes grasping capability, accurately moving to and grabbing it. During grasping, the robot must also judge the bottle's weight and how much water it contains, demonstrating perception and judgment capabilities. Then there's the robot's intelligence. From simple button pressing to complex task planning, robots continuously accumulate operational experience, forming powerful manipulation capabilities. While we don't directly discuss price, cost is an important consideration. As production volume increases, supply chain optimization and batch production naturally reduce costs.
However, the most critical cost control happens at the design stage. We can effectively reduce product costs without sacrificing performance. These efforts not only drive technological progress but also bring us more convenient and intelligent life experiences. Our latest Gen72 robotic arm is priced under 10,000 RMB, a breakthrough pricing strategy that completely shatters the previous high price barrier for household robots. Imagine: a fully functional robotic arm used to cost hundreds of thousands, but now, for just 10,000 RMB, you can bring this technological convenience into your home. Such products hold not just economic value, but more importantly, social value. They can help people improve quality of life and even prevent disease. Therefore, we are committed to popularizing this robot to broader regions, including remote rural areas, allowing more people to enjoy the benefits of technology.
Q: What is the future of robot development? Will its form and function profoundly influence and reshape human life and work?
A: At the most basic level, robots will continuously evolve to better assist humans with various tasks, from daily household chores to complex industrial production, even extending to traditional fields like agriculture and animal husbandry — catching chickens, collecting eggs, farming crabs and pigs — demonstrating broad adaptability and practicality. This is only the initial stage of robot development. As technology advances, our expectations gradually rise. From simply replacing human labor to gradually simulating and surpassing human capabilities, robots will become indispensable partners in our lives.
What we desire is not merely tools, but "superhuman" beings capable of independent thinking, innovation, and even surpassing humans in certain aspects. In this process, the development of computers and artificial intelligence has given robots more powerful "brains." AI technologies represented by ChatGPT have already demonstrated astonishing capabilities in text processing, reasoning, and emergent intelligence, which are gradually being integrated into robot systems.
The future of robot development is unfolding before our eyes. It will be a synthesis of wisdom, strength, and flexibility — capable of executing complex tasks while establishing deep emotional connections with humans. In this process, we need continuous reflection and innovation to give robots more possibilities and value, making them true "superhuman" partners in our lives.