A Zhejiang University robotics team won the $150,000 top award at the ATEC2025·Real-World Extreme Challenge after demonstrating a fully autonomous system capable of completing outdoor tasks without human intervention. The team placed first among 13 international groups in a competition designed to test whether autonomous robots can operate reliably on natural terrain and manage the full cycle of perception, decision-making, and action.
The event, held at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, required all participants to comply with a rule prohibiting remote control. Robots were evaluated on their ability to navigate hills, stone steps, moving bridges, and uneven surfaces, as well as to perform manipulation and environment-interaction tasks. These included orienteering, crossing a swaying bridge, autonomous plant watering, and waste sorting, each assessing capabilities in locomotion, manipulation, or environmental modification.
Teams reported challenges such as slips, navigation errors, and object-recognition failures, underscoring the difficulty of applying laboratory-developed algorithms to uncontrolled real-world settings. Team leader Chengrui Zhu said the conditions prompted a reassessment of how autonomous decision-making is built into embodied systems. The competition was organized by The Chinese University of Hong Kong and co-hosted by ATEC, Peking University, Beijing Normal University, and Ant Group. Approximately 70 experts from research institutions in North America, Europe, and Asia served as judges. Organizers characterized the challenge as part of an effort to accelerate progress in autonomous robotics as systems transition from simulation-ready prototypes to deployment in complex environments.
