Preface
They don't need to be "fully human-like"—they only strive to "grip precisely, transfer steadily, handle without damage, and change over quickly." Amid the roar of intelligent manufacturing production lines, SRT's intelligent actuators are quietly solving the "last centimeter" challenge of automation.
On the technology stage of 2026, humanoid robots have undoubtedly taken the lead. From the "Martial Bot" on the Spring Festival Gala stage to the "Dancing Daren" before the Milan Cathedral, they dance with humans, engage in dialogue, and perform highly complex maneuvers—expanding the horizons of what artificial intelligence can imagine.
But away from the spotlight—inside roaring factories, low-temperature workshops, bustling central kitchens, and busy warehousing centers—another kind of robot is quietly solving the simplest yet most challenging real-world problem: gripping.
They do not walk on two legs, simulate facial expressions, or even possess rigid skeletal structures. Relying solely on a soft yet powerful "dexterous hand," they can gently pick up a mousse cake, precisely sort a camera ring, and even grasp an entire row of ice cream cones.
his is soft robotics technology.
Why does a production line need a "soft" hand?
Traditional rigid grippers and suction cups excel at handling regular, hard, and large workpieces. Yet when faced with irregularly shaped, fragile, and high-mix operational requirements, they come across as "clumsy" and "rigid." Items such as meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables in fresh food processing, precision components in the 3C electronics industry, and delicate packaging in the dairy sector—when handled by traditional grippers, these products either suffer from high damage rates or require frequent equipment reconfiguration due to constantly changing product specifications.
At the same time, today's manufacturing industry is undergoing a transformation toward small-batch, high-mix, and customized production. Production lines face growing demands for flexibility and adaptability. Meanwhile, major trends in sectors such as e-commerce and new energy—including high throughput, high sorting accuracy, and green energy efficiency—have prompted many enterprises to rethink a critical question: how can we enhance automation while simultaneously reducing energy consumption, keeping costs under control, and achieving both quality and efficiency?
This is the long-standing "last centimeter" challenge in industrial automation. For the majority of irregularly shaped and fragile items that automation technologies have yet to adequately address, the production line needs this "soft" hand. It must be capable of mimicking the flexible gripping motion of a human hand to effortlessly handle the sorting of irregular and fragile items. It also requires precise control and high compatibility to adapt to high-mix, multi-scenario operational demands. Most importantly, it must seamlessly integrate into the overall production line system, enabling efficient collaboration with other equipment—finally solving the "last centimeter" challenge of robotics technology in production.
So SRT has forged a different path. Rooted in soft robotics technology and inspired by bionic research into the movements of natural organisms such as starfish, pufferfish, and geckos, SRT has built an entirely new actuation and control mechanism—one defined by flexible materials, pneumatic actuation, and infinite degrees of freedom.
Translating this mechanism into quantifiable products requires a systematic, cross-disciplinary breakthrough. SRT has pioneered the deep integration of bionics, polymer materials science, finite element simulation of elastomers, and soft robotics manufacturing processes to develop a flexible end-effector product system centered on bionic dexterous actuators. This product portfolio includes bionic dexterous grippers, bionic dexterous fingers, bionic dexterous tips, bionic airbags, and bionic suction cups—paired with intelligent controllers such as air source controllers and air source generators. In operation, they are as gentle as a human hand yet as precise as industrial equipment, truly achieving the perfect balance of "soft yet strong."
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Softness: The main body of SRT's bionic dexterous actuator is primarily made of flexible materials, with a hardness close to that of human muscle and skin. It conforms to the shape of the object during contact, exerts low pressure, and causes no surface damage.
02
Adaptability: Without the need for complex sensors or algorithms, the inherent compliance of the structure alone enables it to adapt to objects of different shapes.
03
Integrated Actuation and Structure: Actuation and structure are integrated into one unified design, resulting in a clean system architecture, easy control, and high reliability.
From Market Validation of a Single Dexterous Hand to
an AI-Driven Flexible Future
Guided by the core principle of "technology reuse plus scenario innovation," SRT's bionic dexterous actuators have been deeply integrated into production lines across a wide range of industries. In the field of fragile item handling, SRT's bionic dexterous actuators have demonstrated their adaptability to delicate, irregularly shaped, and easily damaged products. For example, in a customized flexible gripping solution developed for a major domestic dairy enterprise, the damage rate for ice cream cones was reduced from 15% to below 1%—fundamentally disrupting the traditional automation logic for fragile frozen products and laying the groundwork for large-scale production of customized ice cream items. Meanwhile, in other applications such as mousse cake and strawberry sorting, zero-indentation handling has been achieved, while automated sorting has replaced manual operations for food items including egg dumplings, mooncakes, and dough sheets.
In the 3C manufacturing sector, SRT is the preferred supplier for two industry leaders: Foxconn and BOE. The van der Waals force bionic suction cup solves the handling challenges of workpieces such as mobile phone components, glass substrates, and optical lenses—achieving scratch-free, mark-free, and zero-energy transportation.
The breakthroughs in these technical challenges have equipped SRT with the capability to expand into applications requiring higher precision and more demanding environments. Currently, SRT is applying soft robotics technology to manufacturing environments with special handling requirements—such as cleanrooms, precision workshops, and electrostatic-sensitive scenarios. In the lithium battery industry, bionic dexterous actuators are being validated for non-damage handling solutions for fragile materials including battery electrodes and separators. In the hardware components sector, bionic dexterous actuators are solving the challenge of automated loading and unloading for irregularly shaped small parts. In precision manufacturing, soft robotics technology is being integrated into high-precision assembly processes to meet the operational demands of micro-force control, scratch-free handling, and contamination-free operation.
Meanwhile, SRT's bionic dexterous actuators are pushing beyond the boundaries of gripping functionality. With the advancement of embodied AI, robots need not only to "see" and "recognize" but also to "touch" and "manipulate." Built on flexible materials and integrated with soft actuation technology, SRT's bionic dexterous actuators deliver precise force control and adaptive operation with low computational overhead. Anchored by bionic soft robotics technology, SRT is developing dexterous manipulation systems with "perception-planning-control" capabilities, driving the evolution of robotic manipulation toward greater flexibility and human-like performance.
Building on this foundation, SRT has developed the "AI Workstation"—an embodied AI platform for soft robotics that drives robots to deliver personalized meal recommendations and food assembly services. The platform is also equipped with a digital twin engine, showcasing, through the integration of virtual and real-world environments, the boundless potential of AI-driven digital technologies in soft robotics.
ROBAM brought SRT's Smart Tea Art project to the AWE 2026 exhibition, where modern AI robots inherit the delicate craftsmanship of manual tea preparation, achieving natural human-robot collaborative interaction and generating on-site effects that combine "technology showcase with visitor engagement." This solution can be migrated to commercial scenarios such as smart coffee making, ice cream serving, and bartending—propelling soft robotics technology from "gripping" to "serving," and from industrial production lines to human-robot integrated spaces.
If the "dance" of humanoid robots reveals the boundless imagination of robotics technology, then the "hard work" of soft robotics on production lines shows us the tangible power of technology empowering the real economy. SRT's "dexterous hand" is quietly making its mark across production lines in diverse industries—breaking through the bottlenecks of traditional automation with soft robotics technology and driving industrial upgrading with practical, real-world results.