Dexterous Hands & Force Sensors

What the parts do

A humanoid's hand has many small joints, each needing a micro motor and gear, and the robot needs to feel force at the wrist and joints to handle objects safely. Hands and force sensors are therefore separate stages from the large joints covered under robot joint actuators.

Zhaowei describes the two main hand designs: fully driven hands with a micro drive module in each finger joint, and under-actuated hands that use linkages to grip with fewer motors (2026 interim report, p. 10). Keli Sensing sells six-axis force and torque sensors and joint torque sensors (2026 interim report, p. 8).

Where China stands

• Sensors. Keli sold more than 2,000 robot force sensors in the first half of 2026, more than in all of 2025, with monthly orders above 1,000 since April. It has sent samples to more than 90 humanoid, collaborative and industrial robot makers, some have placed batch orders, and several leading customers are validating, none named (pp. 5, 9).
• Hands. Zhaowei sells a range of hands (A17, B21, B06, C06) and drive modules and says commercialisation is advancing, but gives no units or revenue (pp. 10, 11 of its report). Leadshine lists dexterous hands with high, medium and low degrees of freedom and says orders and customer coverage grew significantly, also without figures (2026 interim report, pp. 9, 11).
• Others. Haozhi lists torque sensors and encoders among its robot parts, and Inovance lists sensors and encoders among its humanoid parts, but neither gives revenue for them (2026 interim reports).

The company results show the same pattern as the motors. Keli's revenue rose 22.3% but its net profit fell 24.4%, and Zhaowei's revenue rose 3.8% while its profit fell 34.1%. Leadshine's revenue rose 39.9% and its profit 62.8%, driven mainly by factory automation (company pages).

Our view: this stage is earlier than the motors and reducers. Unit volumes are in the thousands at the one company that reports them, the other two give none, and no filing names a humanoid maker as a customer for hands or sensors.

What to watch

• Keli's monthly orders. The company says they passed 1,000 units a month from April, so the second half shows whether that holds.
• Hand revenue disclosure. A reported hand or module revenue line from Zhaowei or Leadshine would size the stage.
• Named customers. Keli has invested in a humanoid maker (Kepler) and says it supplies some, which makes it the likeliest first to name one.