DEEP Robotics puts humanoid traffic helpers on the route of the Hangzhou Marathon

On November 1, DEEP Robotics sent its Hangxing No.2 humanoids to help manage traffic at the Hangzhou Marathon. The robots worked around the Huanglong Sports Center as part of a patrol plan covering four locations, and were built together with local traffic authorities. The race had 36,000 runners.

According to the company, the machines patrol set routes, watch intersections, warn people about traffic violations, answer questions from the public and make standard traffic-control gestures. A video on X shows two yellow-and-black units in police-style caps at a pedestrian crossing. The robots are based on the DR02 platform, which is rated IP66 and works from -20°C to 55°C. DR02 was tested on traffic duty in rainy West Lake conditions in October.

The details were reported by Global Times and republished on Hangzhou's official English-language website.

Why it matters

A marathon gives a humanoid real crowds and moving vehicles, which a test site cannot. DEEP Robotics says it wants to find a repeatable model for large races.

The available reporting leaves gaps. It gives no count of times staff had to step in, no accuracy figures for spotting violations, and no account of how much human operators controlled the robots. It also does not show that the robots issued penalties themselves. Watch for those numbers, and for whether other cities or events adopt the same setup.