In recent years, humanoid robots have been presented to the public through dance, acrobatics and martial arts, not only as a spectacle, but as a demonstration of advanced body control, now, during the Chinese New Year celebrations, a demonstration attracted even more attention.

Engineers placed a sword in the hands of a humanoid robot, the robot nicknamed by the Chinese press as Lin Chong in reference to a famous fictional swordsman from Chinese literature, executes sequences of punches, thrusts and acrobatic movements inspired by traditional martial arts.

The goal is not to create a combat machine, at least that is the official information, but to demonstrate how far balance control, coordination and motor precision have come in modern robotics. The platform used is the Robotera L7, a humanoid presented in July 2025 with support from the University of Xinua. The model has 55 degrees of freedom, allowing complex independent movements in various parts of the body, only the arms have 7 degrees of freedom, while the hands have multiple points of articulation for final manipulation.

This level of mobility allows the robot to execute quick turns, jumps and sudden changes in posture without losing balance, something that until a few years ago was one of the biggest challenges of humanoid robotics. The use of swords and choreographed movements serves as a showcase for deeper capabilities. Each gesture requires integration between visual perception, movement planning and dynamic control in real time.

In other words, it's not about the weapon, it's about the body learning to move in ways that increasingly resemble our species. Robotera had previously demonstrated the L7 in break dancing and in commercial service settings, but the recent video reinforces a clear trend—robotics is leaving the controlled environments of laboratories and moving toward increasingly natural displays of physical skill.

In the end, the scene of a robot wielding a sword may seem like just marketing, but it symbolizes something bigger, we are seeing machines not only executing commands, but mastering movements that require almost human timing, balance and coordination. An important step in the approximation between technology and real physical behavior.