Recently, there were reports that State Grid Corporation of China released the "2026 Embodied Intelligence Development Plan", planning to centrally procure about 8,500 units of various embodied intelligence equipment this year, with a total investment of about 6.8 billion yuan. Among them, humanoid live-line operation robots are the highest-priced category, with a procurement volume of 500 units and a budget of 2.5 billion yuan. Meanwhile, the humanoid robot of embodied intelligence enterprise Deep Robotics had already won the bid in September last year for the State Grid Hebei Electric Power Energy Technology Company project "Intelligent Live-line Detection Robot System for Power Equipment". At present, the industry’s first humanoid robot "Fu'an", specially customized and developed for intelligent live-line operation scenarios in medium- and high-voltage substations and power distribution rooms in the power industry, is about to be delivered to State Grid Electric Power.

Deep Robotics, relying on 6D dynamic vision and force-position hybrid control technology, multimodal sensing and cross-modal data AI large-model fusion technology, piezoelectric six-axis force sensors, and lightweight dexterous hands resistant to strong electromagnetic interference, won the bid from State Grid Electric Power, becoming the industry’s first humanoid robot enterprise capable of meeting the needs of scenarios such as intelligent live-line detection of power equipment, which demand high requirements, harsh environments, but even higher value. It has customized and developed for State Grid Electric Power the intelligent live-line operation humanoid robot named "Fu'an", together with the complete robot unit and related core components.

This project aims to improve the operation, maintenance efficiency, and safety of power equipment, promote the industry’s digitalization and intelligent transformation and upgrading, reduce personnel entry into high-risk areas, and requires long-duration, continuous live-line operation and strong terrain adaptability. By using humanoid robots to make up for the shortcomings of human workers and traditional robots with limited coverage, it achieves full coverage of intelligent live-line detection.

The project difficulties include: development of a robotic arm-dexterous hand device resistant to strong electromagnetic interference for multimodal data detection; precise positioning technology for detection points based on pose-force sensor coupling; establishment of a real-time data analysis, defect diagnosis, and fault prediction management and control platform based on large models and multimodal fusion, among others.

In response to the above technical challenges, the industry’s first intelligent live-line operation humanoid robot "Fu'an", soon to be released by Deep Robotics, has the following technical and product advantages specially designed for intelligent live-line detection scenarios:

① Professional end effector for live-line power detection: lightweight dexterous hand design resistant to strong electromagnetic interference and modular tool adaptation, enabling precise grasping of sensors and reliable attachment to detection points.

② High-precision dynamic force-position hybrid control system: real-time collision-free trajectory planning capability for multi-degree-of-freedom robotic arms in complex environments and high-precision force-position hybrid control. The force-position hybrid control ensures force-control precision through real-time feedback from highly dynamic six-axis force sensing, while also taking position precision into account; through a large amount of collaborative operation data, the scheduling mechanism is optimized and repeatedly tested in actual substation environments to ensure the robustness and safety of trajectory planning.

③ Highly robust adaptive multimodal data collection and fusion positioning algorithm: overcomes multiple uncertainties such as robot pose deviation, sensor insertion deviation, and equipment surface curvature disturbances. By integrating multimodal data, it builds a universal positioning system to handle efficient fusion and real-time computation of high-dimensional data; adaptive algorithms are used to suit complex operating scenarios, and a multimodal operation database is established to achieve algorithm robustness, realizing a full-process closed-loop operation from positioning to data collection.

④ Cross-modal perception technology and real-time fault risk warning mechanism based on the attention mechanism of AI large models: AI large-model training is used to process historical fault data across devices and operating conditions, building a multi-physics coupled fault knowledge graph to overcome data heterogeneity and the shortage of rare fault samples; a collaborative attention Co-Attention mechanism is introduced to fuse multimodal data, strictly controlling computation time while optimizing and improving cross-modal correlation; a dynamic prediction model generates probabilistic fault-risk warnings in real time, integrating power-model constraints to ensure prediction accuracy and real-time performance; RL reinforcement learning algorithms optimize large-model training and real-time defect diagnosis and fault prediction for multimodal data fusion.

⑤ Highly safe robot motion control and protection strategy for complex environments: enables traversal over complex terrain, panoramic perception, and intelligent obstacle avoidance. Emergency stop response time is ≤0.1 seconds, and device self-check covers batteries, networks, sensors, and other modules, meeting IP67 protection standards; supports automatic opening and closing of door closers, and seamless integration with switch cabinet doors and rodent-proof plates.

Deep Robotics has repeatedly expressed its views at events such as the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, believing that humanoid robots should break away from the strange cycle of "running and jumping just for show". They should not continue consuming vast resources on the not-so-innovative form of "humanoid robots having been keen on performing in fixed structured scenarios ever since their birth in 1973". Instead, they should start from multimodal physical quantity perception in different dynamic environments, integrate rapidly developing artificial intelligence technologies for autonomous decision-making and control, combine with high-value vertical industries such as electric power, energy, and petrochemicals that have extremely high scenario requirements, truly meet rigid industry demands, and create value for humanity. This is what differentiates the current wave of humanoid robots from the previous waves of humanoid robot enthusiasm from the 1980s to the early years of this century, and only then will it be possible to realize the industrial expectations for a trillion-yuan market in this wave of embodied intelligence.

These views are gaining more and more attention. Since the beginning of this year, the large-scale CCTV documentary "Manufacturing a Strong Nation" specially reported on Deep Robotics under the theme of "The Mission of Robots Beyond the Stage"; Xinhuanet interviewed Deep Robotics co-founder Zheng Ruping under the title "Promoting Innovative Development of Embodied Intelligence with Hardcore Technology and Real Scenarios"; and Xinhua News Agency introduced Deep Robotics with "New Quality Productive Forces, Intelligent Manufacturing for a Strong Nation | Deep Robotics: Empowering Robots with Intelligent Perception Technology for Real-World Missions".

The CCTV documentary "Manufacturing a Strong Nation" described the mission of Deep Robotics’ robots in this way: "In those corners where humans are unwilling, unable, or even afraid to venture, what we truly need are partners that can push open doors, step forward, use precise perception to judge, and act with reliable decision-making." The live-line power operation scenario undoubtedly highly aligns with such a robot mission.

From taking the lead the year before last in proposing the development of a "general embodied intelligence world model capable of extracting causal and physical relationships along the time dimension", to launching MindMover, the first brain-computer interaction system combined with a humanoid robot, on the eve of last year’s WAIC（World Artificial Intelligence Conference）, then to the issuance by seven ministries including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Innovative Development of the Brain-Computer Interface Industry", and later to its humanoid robot winning the bid from State Grid Electric Power last year, Deep Robotics anticipated ahead of the industry the demand for high-value scenarios such as live-line operation in the power sector, and specifically developed the first intelligent live-line operation humanoid robot "Fu'an" for delivery to the State Grid power department. Deep Robotics does not blindly follow trends or engage in homogeneous competition in form, yet on the embodied intelligence track where "a profusion of dazzling developments can easily bewilder the eye", it has repeatedly revealed the key insight ahead of time and led the direction. It is becoming a representative enterprise of embodied humanoid robots that is demand-oriented, deeply committed to hardcore technologies, creates value for the industry, and achieves commercial implementation.

The key to the second half of the humanoid robot race lies in how to achieve a commercial breakthrough. Who can laugh last and become the true ultimate winner, we shall wait and see.

（The complete robot images of Fu'an in this article are rendered based on its actual structural design. The final product form shall be subject to the official release, while the core components are all photographs of the actual items.）