China firm unveils self-charging robot built for 24/7 factory labor

China’s UBTech has introduced the Walker S2, the world’s first humanoid robot capable of fully autonomous battery swapping, enabling continuous 24/7 operation in industrial settings. The robot can replace its own depleted battery pack within three minutes without human intervention, thanks to an advanced dual-battery balancing system and standardized battery modules. This system allows the Walker S2 to switch to a backup battery if the main one fails and intelligently decide between charging or swapping based on task urgency, ensuring uninterrupted and optimized factory performance. In addition to the Walker S2, UBTech has made strides in humanoid robot collaboration with its “BrainNet” framework, demonstrated earlier in 2025 at Zeekr’s 5G-enabled smart factory. This cloud-device intelligence system integrates a “super brain” for complex decision-making and “intelligent sub-brains” for distributed multi-robot control, enabling multiple Walker S1 robots to coordinate tasks such as assembly and inspection with high precision. Powered by proprietary reasoning technology