Humanoid robot Tien Kung has become the first humanoid robot to test running shoes in Beijing, opening a new frontier in sports product development. The trial took place at the Li-Ning Sports Science Research Centre last week. Engineers fitted the full-sized robot with running shoes before sending it onto a 3D force treadmill and a 200-meter indoor track.

The test focused on cushioning, rebound, and other performance indicators that usually take weeks of athlete data collection. Embedded sensors tracked detailed biomechanical information during the runs. Traditional shoe testing depends on athletes running multiple sessions across weeks to produce a usable dataset.