On October 30, at the finals of the 2nd Zhuhai International Dexterous Manipulation Challenge, CVTE's robotics team, VibotPro, with its millimeter-level "Thread-a-Needle" robotic arm MAXHUB A3, claimed victory in the production track with a decisive advantage, becoming the only team in the competition to autonomously complete all tasks.
This competition was organized by the relevant departments of Zhuhai City under the theme "Dexterous New Forces, Intelligent Innovation for the Future". It attracted over 20 top teams from both domestic and international institutions, including the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Liverpool (UK), Zhejiang University, Novax Robotics (Germany), and more. The event is considered a high-level, international competition in the field of embodied intelligence in China.
Winning through Technology: Dominating the Competition with an Absolute Advantage
This competition adhered to a "use-oriented" approach in setting up the tracks. The robots' dexterous manipulation was not merely a demonstration but was placed in real production and life scenarios, pioneering the "Production + Life" dual-track model. The production track focused on typical applications in "industrial assembly," conducted within limited time and workspace conditions. It primarily evaluated the robot system's core capabilities, including the recognition and grasping of various types of workpieces, precise alignment, and fine operations. The competition also tested the system's ability to rapidly reconfigure assembly processes, aiming to design a new intelligent manufacturing system with autonomy, stability, and flexibility, enabling the flexible assembly of different types of components.
In the competition, CVTE's robotics team VibotPro, using the self-developed MAXHUB A3 intelligent flexible robotic arm, completed three fixed tasks set for the production track in just 12 minutes and 16 seconds, claiming victory with the fastest time. It was the only team to autonomously complete all tasks in the entire event, demonstrating the MAXHUB A3's superior execution precision and interaction capabilities, which effectively support the research and implementation of industrial assembly applications.
Let's take a closer look at the difficulty of these three tasks:
In the "Limited Space Grasping Task", the robot needs to retrieve a 32mm long, 4mm thick cotter pin, a 40.3mm long, 16mm thick bolt, and a flexible wiring harness from a parts storage box measuring 365mm × 245mm × 63mm, and then place them in the designated colored areas on the workbench. In the "Rigid Component Assembly Task", the robot is required to screw the bolt into the threaded hole of the task board and insert the cotter pin into the bolt's tail pin hole. The "Flexible Wiring Harness Insertion Task" requires the robot to insert the connectors at both ends of the flexible wiring harness into the insertion holes/sockets of the task board and secure the harness in a slot.
This competition, focused on "Production + Life" scenarios, addresses the current "bottleneck" challenges in the industry with its emphasis on "dexterous manipulation". It reflects that China's robotics industry is no longer satisfied with just "walking" and "watching", but is instead pushing for a higher level of intelligence - "dexterous working". This marks a shift into deeper technical research. The competition's tasks specifically evaluated the robot's core capabilities in areas such as recognition and positioning of multiple types of workpieces, stable and non-colliding grasping, correct classification, precise alignment and compliant force control during assembly, plug-in connection, and flexible object recognition and manipulation. These are all essential capabilities for robots in industrial precision assembly scenarios, effectively driving the evolution of embodied intelligence technology from "showcasing skills" to "practical use".
Attracting Attention, Gradual Application
At the recently concluded 138th Canton Fair, the MAXHUB A3 intelligent flexible robotic arm was publicly showcased for the first time. It demonstrated the high-precision performance of the robotic arm and the superiority of its data acquisition link through "Thread-a-Needle," which can support high-precision assembly tasks. This attracted ongoing attention from the industry as well as domestic and international media outlets, including CCTV, Xinhua News Agency, and People's Daily, with the robot making three appearances on the national news broadcast.
At the same time, CVTE also launched its fully self-developed embodied operation algorithm platform, which provides the core support for the high-performance capabilities of the robotic arm. This platform integrates multi-modal learning and fusion capabilities, supporting various embodied intelligence solutions such as imitation learning, real-machine reinforcement learning, and VLA large models. It enables an integrated operation from perception and decision-making to control.
Currently, the MAXHUB A3 intelligent flexible robotic arm has been validated for its value in CVTE's own factories, where it operates efficiently with a positioning accuracy of ±0.1mm and a motion speed exceeding 5m/s. It is not only the champion on the competition stage but also a key tool for CVTE in overcoming the "last mile" of industrial automation.
From its debut at the Canton Fair to its victory at the Zhuhai competition, this intelligent flexible robotic arm is steadily advancing toward broader applications, making a significant impact in fields such as high-end manufacturing, vocational education, and scientific research and innovation.
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