The assignment is led by UBTECH Robotics Corp., a Shenzhen-based company that builds full-size humanoid robots for industry and public services.
Its engineers focus on embodied intelligence, which is artificial intelligence that controls a physical robot body, so these machines can handle messy, real-world environments.
Fangchenggang is a coastal city in Guangxi near the border with Vietnam, where cargo trucks, coaches, and day travelers constantly cycle through.
Chinese planners see a border crossing as a tough, real-world test, because schedules are tight and inspections cannot easily stop.
If these robots perform reliably there, it will be easier to argue for similar deployments at airports, seaports, and crowded train stations.
Walker S2 is an adult-sized humanoid machine with jointed legs, a torso, and arms, designed to move wherever people already walk.
It uses autonomous battery swapping, which involves robots changing battery packs without human help, so that it can work with very little downtime.
To stay balanced and avoid collisions, the robot combines cameras, depth sensors, and force feedback in its joints to monitor nearby movement.
That mix of hardware and software makes Walker S2 closer to a general purpose worker than many single-task factory machines.
