Adam Draws the String, PNDbotics’ Humanoid Steps Into Archery Territory

A full-size humanoid from the Chinese firm PNDbotics recently appeared in a tech demonstration holding a bow, drawing the string, and releasing an arrow. The moment lands as more than a stunt. It shows how far the company’s Adam platform has come in coordinating dozens of joints, sensing force, and keeping its balance while performing a precise, two-handed action that once belonged only to people.

Adam is a slender 1.67 meters tall and weighs between 60 and 63 kilograms, however this can fluctuate depending on what’s on board. When you factor in the typical human height, you get a number that is light enough for indoor use while remaining hefty enough to stay place when its center of mass fluctuates, which it does frequently. The higher-spec models include 41 to 43 degrees of freedom. Again, the legs have six joints to play with, each built around a really clever biomimetic hip joint that allows the pelvis to tilt and rotate in ways that earlier versions of this type of thing could only dream of matching, and to make things even more interesting, it’s all powered by quasi-direct-drive actuators that deliver a healthy 340 to 360 newton-meters of torque at the hips and knees. These are positioned close to the joints to keep the weight down, resulting in a very soft and compliant feel when Adam brushes up against something or someone.

Unitree R1 Humanoid Robot (White, R1)

• Three models, one lightweight platform R1 Air (20 DOF, monocular camera), R1 (26 DOF, binocular camera, head+waist joints), and R1 Edu (26 DOF…
• Easy setup – no coding required for basic use Unbox, power on, and start. Manual teaching feature: physically pose the robot, and it replays the…
• More DOF = more expressive movement 26‑DOF models (R1 / R1 Edu) add head and waist articulation for smoother dance and running. For safety reasons…

The same hardware is used for the upper body, as the higher-spec models’ arms are a true showstopper, with thirteen degrees of flexibility each and finishing in some seriously spectacular multi-fingered hands that can close around a bow handle, nock an arrow, and manage the draw with ease. The actuators have force sensing built in, allowing the robot to detect resistance and modify its grip without smashing the equipment or losing the string. All of this is powered by a battery pack with a capacity of 1,170 to 1,190 watt-hours, which provides Adam with enough energy to run for a couple of hours of active work – enough for a number of practice sessions or brief demos.

The control software is where everything comes together. PNDbotics has adopted deep reinforcement learning, first training in simulation and then transferring the skills to a real-world robot. Then they added additional imitation learning using human motion capture data to fill in any gaps, allowing Adam to learn for himself how individuals shift their weight, rotate their torsos, and stabilize their arms throughout a variety of complex maneuvers. There are also whole-body control algorithms that keep the feet anchored and the posture upright even when the arms are extended and the string is tugging strongly. The end result resembles a developed skill rather than a pre-programmed routine.

Adam has already been put through its paces in public and has handled a wide range of demands. It climbed up a one-meter-high box by gripping the edge with both hands, hauling itself up, and swinging a leg over, all while maintaining its balance. It walked stairs in unstructured circumstances during the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, marking one of the platform’s first public appearances. It has even played a keytar on stage at a music festival, danced the Charleston, and completed a variety of other impressive-looking tasks, including some very sophisticated motion-capture routines that map the actions of a human operator onto the robot in real time. The bow-and-arrow sequence is the same thing: a full-body task that requires strength, timing, and precise motor control in a variety of hard ways.