On August 20, at the 2026 World Robot Conference (WRC) parallel forum "Bionic Empowerment, Intelligent Creation of the Future — Bionic Embodied Intelligent Robotics Breakthroughs and Industrial Ecosystem Co-Building," Ren Lei — tenured professor at the University of Manchester, founder of Yuequan Bionics, and executive committee director of the Jilin Provincial Bionic Robotics Innovation Center — released a complete in-house product matrix: the Y-Hand series dexterous hands, YQ Motors, and YQ Muscles artificial muscle modules. Underpinning them all is what Ren Lei calls the "bionic tension-compression body" theory, which rethinks robot design across materials, joint structure, and actuation.
Y-Hand M2: flagship bionic dexterous hand
- 38 degrees of freedom — among the world's top tier of dexterous hands
- 330N total grasp force — more than 6x conventional rigid dexterous hands
- 0.2s five-finger closure — near human-hand reaction speed, 3x faster than rigid hands
- 0.04mm fingertip repeatability — over 2x the precision of rigid hands
- YQ Motors: 8 series spanning 4–22mm, all core drive components domestically developed — the dedicated "power heart" of the dexterous hands
- YQ Muscles: artificial muscle modules replicating human skeletal muscle biomechanics, delivering compliant and safe actuation
- X-Hand M1: a rigid dexterous hand for heavy factory assembly lines — up to 50kg payload and a million-cycle lifespan — complementing the bionic Y-Hand series as a "soft vs. rigid" portfolio
- Y-Bot series: super-bionic neuromusculoskeletal robots with human-like motor intelligence and bio-level compliance
- W-Bot 2.0 humanoid: light and agile, aimed at campus education, commercial guidance, and home service
- "Zhuri" and "Zuiyue" quadrupeds: strong terrain adaptability on uneven and wild ground
- Quan Engine: an embodied intelligence foundation model for multimodal perception and understanding, closing the loop from cognition to precise action with whole-hand, whole-arm, whole-body active sensing
- People's Daily Online, "2026 World Robot Conference releases multiple bionic embodied intelligent robotics achievements," 2026-08-23
- The Paper (澎湃新闻), "Changchun bionic robots show hard sci-tech strength at WRC," 2026-08-22
- Guangzhou Daily Dayang Net, "How can robots balance compliance, safety and intelligence? Bionic tension-compression body technology answers," 2026-08-22
- China.org.cn Sci-Tech, "Bionic Embowerment forum successfully held," 2026-08-21
- Yuequan Bionics WAIC 2026 public product materials (Y-Hand M1: 299.7g, 26 DOF, 200N grip, etc.)
These figures break the traditional "force–speed–precision" trilemma: conventional dexterous hands trade off compliance for strength and precision for payload, while the M2 reaches 2–6x rigid-hand performance across all three dimensions simultaneously.
Y-Hand M1: lightweight variant
Released in early July, the M1 weighs just 299.7g (less than a can of cola), integrates 26 DOF, achieves 200N five-finger grip, and assigns 8 DOF to the thumb alone — unusual in the industry, since most vendors stack DOF across all five fingers, while fine human manipulations (tip pinch, opposition, envelope grasp) rely mostly on the thumb. At WAIC, the M1 picked up a water bottle, a wrench, and a plush toy; the soft object was grasped without deformation using light fingertip contact plus compliant gripping.
Supporting stack
The "bionic tension-compression body" theory
Ren Lei explains: in the human musculoskeletal system, hard tissue primarily bears compression while soft tissue bears tension, working in coordination. Transferred to robotics, this becomes a multi-level integrated system where rigid components take compression and flexible components take tension, coupled rigid-flexibly. Unlike rigid hinge designs that concentrate both motion and load on stiff joints, this architecture sidesteps the deadlock of "high rigidity = high impact, high compliance = low precision."
A key safety implication: conventional rigid human-robot collaboration depends on force sensors and control algorithms to cap collision forces, whereas the rigid-flex coupling of a tension-compression body provides passive compliance — flexible structures absorb impact before it reaches a person. This matters greatly for home service, medical assistance, and eldercare scenarios.
Full-stack embodied intelligence
Field data show the Y-Hand M2 maintains a 96% task success rate across repeated complex operations — a rare figure in dynamic, open environments. Yuequan Bionics' full-stack approach — original underlying theory plus in-house core components plus an embodied foundation model — is rare in China's embodied AI sector, where most players either build only models, only hardware, or integrate off-the-shelf foreign motors and drivers.
Ren Lei stated that "bionic embodied intelligent robots are a core track of China's new productive forces and a strategic high ground of future industries." The same day, Changchun hosted the "Bionic Empowerment, Intelligent Creation of the Future" action-signing ceremony, including agreements on成果转化 and application scenarios, industrial ecosystem cooperation, and overseas expansion — moving bionic robotics from papers to industrial deployment.