New job: Humanoid robot marathon winner tests running shoes

In May 2025, the humanoid robot Tien Kung (also known as Tiangong Walker) from the Chinese robotics company UBTech Robotics won first place in a marathon race in Beijing in 2 hours and 40 minutes. The robot has now received its first "contract": It works as a running shoe tester. This was reported by China Daily on Monday. What initially sounds like a publicity stunt, however, has a serious economic background. It could significantly improve and speed up the development of running shoes.

The humanoid robot Tien Kung is 1.7 m tall and was developed together with the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center. The robot has a total of 20 degrees of freedom and is able to walk like a human thanks to its embodied intelligence. It can reach speeds of up to 12 km/h, climb stairs and hills and also walk on sand, gravel and snow.

Better data in less time

The robot carried out its first running shoe tests at the Li-Ning Sports Science Research Center. The fact that it is a life-size robot that can run like a human makes it suitable for such tests. The results can be transferred to running shoes for humans. First, the robot equipped with running shoes was sent onto a 3D power treadmill and a 200 m indoor track. The cushioning, rebound and other performance indicators of the running shoes were recorded. Normally, athletes are used to collect this data for several weeks.

The robot collects the necessary data while running via sensors embedded in the robot's hip, knee and ankle joints. The testers use these to record detailed biomechanical information. Yang Fan, Director of the Li-Ning Research Center, says that such data is almost impossible to collect from human athletes.

However, the use of humanoid robots for running shoe tests has another advantage: robots are able to repeat test sequences over and over again in the same way without showing signs of fatigue. Human athletes, on the other hand, have to complete several test runs over several weeks in order to obtain a comparable data set. The use of the Tien Kung robot, on the other hand, provides consistent, reproducible and therefore usable results after just a few hours of use.

The tests are already showing that the use of the humanoid robot provides better and faster test data that can be incorporated into product development. This speeds up the product design cycle and reduces costs. It also gives developers a more accurate picture of the performance of the running shoes in practice.

The testers at the research center now want to further refine the tests. They are planning to set up a running shoe database in which values for cushioning, springback and other performance characteristics are recorded. The database will then be used for research and material development as well as for the targeted product development of running shoes.

(olb)