S2 · 05/2025 · Unitree Robotics · China
| Company | Unitree Robotics |
| Category | other |
| Type | malfunction |
| Date | 05/2025 |
| Time of day | not documented |
| Location | China |
| Severity | S2 (minor injury or single-unit damage) |
| Scale | 1 robot, 2 engineers present |
| Confidence | medium |
| Verification | Yes - adversarially checked against the cited source |
| Source | Interesting Engineering |
A Unitree H1 humanoid robot being tested at a facility in China suddenly went berserk, wildly flailing its arms and legs and knocking over equipment including a computer. Two engineers had to scramble to avoid being hit before one regained control by pulling the robot's support stand back. Preliminary reports attributed the malfunction to a coding/algorithm error in the robot's balance-control software. Captured on CCTV, the video went viral.