An operator controls a robot dog near West Lake in Hangzhou from Shanxi Television's exhibition area over 1,300 km away. [Photo/WeChat account: ArcVideo]

A robot dog was seen strolling along Hangzhou city's iconic West Lake on Aug 21, interacting with tourists and appearing to admire the lotus flowers — all the while being controlled remotely from a cultural expo more than 1,300 kilometers away in North China's Shanxi province.

The demonstration was part of a live broadcast collaboration between Shanxi Television and tech companies Arcvideo and Deep Robotics, which are based in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province.

Using Arcvideo's BlackEye Vision ultra-long-distance remote control system, a member of staff at the expo maneuvered the Deep Robotics' Lite 3 robot dog in real time to walk along the lakeside.

The system cuts end-to-end latency to under 80 milliseconds — 20 ms faster than the fastest reported human neural response time. It integrates synchronized multi-modal data transmissions — including video, audio, LiDAR point clouds, control signals and text. That gives operators a detailed three-dimensional awareness of the robot's surroundings for precise control.

"The livestream demonstrates expanded application possibilities for cultural tourism and media industries," said a staff member from Arcvideo.

According to the staff member, robots could be sent in place of journalists to special news sites that are normally hard to reach, such as fire or earthquake zones.

These sites often face networks, power or road access outages, where 4G, 5G and Wi-Fi can't ensure real-time communications. Arcvideo's system can automatically switch to satellite communications to enable remote operations and live video backhaul.

Formidable performer: Deep Robotics' Lite 3 robot dog. [Photo/deeprobotics.cn]