FAW wheel-arm humanoid robot enters factory trials

In the final-assembly workshop, the wheel-arm robot first identifies components and then picks and delivers them; it subsequently tightens rear-suspension bolts. In the welding workshop, it has also performed tasks loading welded parts. First Electric Network, citing a report by Gasgoo, said the robot is already undergoing validation in multiple real production and testing scenarios.

The industrial humanoid robot, independently developed by FAW, combines a self-developed VLA manipulation foundation model with whole-body motion-control capabilities. VLA can be understood as enabling a robot to combine vision, language and action to complete operations; in a factory, it must perceive its surroundings, understand tasks, plan routes, and then autonomously grasp, transport, load, fasten and position objects. FAW hopes to modularize these capabilities and create a product architecture built around “one brain, diverse bodies.”

The other robots on display are designed for different types of work. The full-size bipedal humanoid robot stands 1.73 meters tall and has 41 degrees of freedom across its body. It uses a “brain + cerebellum” coordinated architecture to handle voice interaction, environmental understanding, task planning, standing, walking and whole-body coordination. The roughly 1.5-meter-tall small bipedal commercial-service robot is aimed at scenarios including venue tours, reception and guidance, technology demonstrations and brand services.

The heavy-load robot is more closely suited to internal factory logistics and assembly. It uses a four-steering-wheel mobile chassis, combined with SLAM navigation (simultaneous localization and mapping), a multimodal perception system and two seven-degree-of-freedom robotic arms. It can perform autonomous positioning, dynamic obstacle avoidance and coordinated two-arm operations. Its rated payload is 25 kilograms per arm, with 8 hours of runtime. It is designed for material handling, tooling assembly and production support, but remains at the prototype-validation stage.

Specifically, this shows that robots can now validate tasks such as handling, loading, fastening and positioning at specific workstations in automotive manufacturing. FAW is also developing, building prototypes of and validating multiple joint-module variants, and has completed tests for temperature rise, accuracy, noise and long-duration load fatigue. These efforts are intended to prepare core components for stable motion and scaled delivery. At this stage, the wheel-arm robot has already undergone workstation validation, while the heavy-load robot remains at the prototype stage. Moving from validation to long-term, high-volume use will still depend on the results of these tests and on production performance.