Watch ZQ Robotics' T800 land a real kick on its CEO in a bold demo, showcasing strength beyond most humans and operating costs at one third of human labor.
© B. Naumkin
ZQ Robotics has released a new demonstration video showing the ZQ T800 robot landing a kick on a human for the first time — and the person on the receiving end was the company’s own chief executive. In the clip, Zhao Tongyang, the founder, chairman and CEO of Zhongqing Robotics, steps in wearing protective gear and takes a direct kick from the T800. Despite his 75 kg, the impact clearly has enough force to knock him off his feet — a bold way to illustrate what the machine can do.
Zhao later said that without that protection he would likely have suffered a serious injury. He added that employees had long been curious about what it feels like to be hit by the T800 and had persuaded him to test the robot’s strike himself.
The company had previously shared footage of the robot executing a spinning kick in midair. The T800 can string together a series of those strikes and even kick down a door with a single move. According to ZQ Robotics, the T800 is intended to rethink the boundaries of human–machine interaction, with strength that exceeds that of more than 80% of people around 1.7 meters tall.
Another metric stands out: the operating cost of the T800 amounts to just one third of human labor, a calculation that could make the technology appealing for wider adoption.