The new Chinese startup Arkshel Robotics just introduced what it calls the world’s first flying transformable humanoid robot.
The robotics firm shared test footage of its first prototype, called the MX01, less than a month after it was formally established in July 2026. It set up shop in Shenzhen’s Nanshan district, which is home to several unicorn robotics startups including EngineAI, LimX Dynamics, and Pudu Robotics, as well as UBTECH, China’s first pure-play humanoid firm to enter the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. They’ve accelerated development dramatically in the last few years thanks to the area’s robust robotics supply chain that allows for fast iterations.
The startup’s website lists Jian S. Dai as an important shareholder with a background in shape-shifting robotics. He’s a professor of mechanisms and robotics at the Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering at Shenzhen’s Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTECH). He also serves as an Emeritus professor at King’s College London.
Since the 1990s, he’s specialized in what he calls metamorphic mechanisms. That’s engineering speak for what’s basically real-world Transformers: machines that can physically change form to better handle different tasks and environments.
One example is the Origaker, a quadruped robot that can reconfigure its body to resemble a reptile, a spider, or a mammal-like form. Instead of using a traditional rigid torso like quadrupeds from Boston Dynamics and Unitree, his team engineered a design that could twist, fold, and reposition the robot’s legs so it could take on different body shapes.
He’s also helped develop metamorphic robotic hands with reconfigurable palms and exoskeletons that can adapt their shape or movement to different users and tasks.
Arkshel takes the idea of metamorphic robots to the current limits of technology with its MX01. According to the startup, the transformer can reconfigure itself between a humanoid, a quadruped, and an aerial configuration. A wheeled mode is under development.
As a humanoid, the robot is designed for dexterous work that requires a form factor similar to a real person, while its four-legged mode is meant for tasks requiring multi-terrain mobility. If it needs to bypass an obstacle, a separate flight module autonomously docks with the MX01 and lifts it into the air.
The aerial system looks like a heavy-duty industrial drone, the type of platform Shenzhen’s drone industry has been building and refining for years. A humanoid-sized payload is already well within the range of commercial lift-heavy drones like DJI’s FlyCart 100, which has a maximum takeoff weight of a hundred and 70 kg (375 lbs).
Arkshel’s concept is similar to an idea explored by researchers at Caltech, who integrated a Unitree G1 humanoid with its M4 transforming drone. The humanoid carried the drone like a backpack and then bent forward to launch it. The M4 could subsequently land, switch to wheeled driving, and then fly again if it encountered an obstacle. An obvious use case for that system, or the more advanced MX1, would be disaster response in areas where no single form of mobility is enough.
That’s also the kind of problem researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) are tackling with iRonCub 3, which uses four jet turbines for aerial mobility. Arkshel’s approach looks more practical, at least in the near-term, though the tradeoff is it still relies on a separate aircraft to be available and successfully dock.
The startup says it’s already taking preorders, though there is no publicly listed price. In its first demo, Arkshell also makes clear that the MX01 is an initial prototype and explicitly notes that its “final appearance and structure” may change as development continues.
Arkshell says it’s developing the system after completing a seed funding round, backed by CDF Capital and Hengqin IDC. Its R&D team is from institutions like SUSTECH, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Purdue University, Waseda University, and the National University of Singapore.
Though the MX01 concept may seem fantastical, there’s clear commercial appetite for robots that can change form factors. The fellow Shenzhen-based startup LimX Dynamics, for example, is known for its multi-form-factor Tron 2 robots. LimX has raised around $400 million so far this year, with a valuation of $2.2 billion, as it pursues an initial public offering in Hong Kong to scale its Tron platform along with its humanoids, Oli and Luna.
LimX, which was spun out of SUSTECH’s Control and Learning for Robotics and Autonomy Lab (CLEAR) by professor Zhang Wei in 2022, is marketing Tron as a Lego-like platform that can be adapted for bipedal or wheeled mobility, built into a centaur-style robot with arms, or even mounted onto an industrial robotic arm so it can reach spots humans can’t. For the time being, LimX’s approach is more realistic for near-term practical use because Tron 2 is manually configured into the form needed for a job rather than autonomously transforming on the fly.
And then there’s Unitree’s new $650,000 GD01 mecha robot that’s designed to transform between bipedal and quadruped locomotion. Unitree founder Wang Xingxing says his decade-old robotics firm plans to invest much more into the mecha concept, and other next-generation designs, after its blockbuster IPO in Shanghai. Read all about China’s latest tech billionaire’s unlikely rise and his vision for a robot-run future right here.