Beijing-headquartered RobotPlusPlus (ROBOT++) rolled out an expanded HighMate lineup of industrial-maintenance robots at SMM 2026 in Hamburg on September 24, positioning the company's magnetic-crawler platforms as a direct answer to labour shortages, high-altitude accident risk and tightening emissions rules across shipbuilding, energy and infrastructure.
HighMate Series Steps Onto the Global Stage
At Europe's largest maritime trade fair, RobotPlusPlus centred its stand on the HighMate AP-F-CO coating robot with an integrated volatile-organic-compound recovery system that captures overspray while painting at 300–500 square metres per hour, alongside the explosion-proof HighMate AP Ex Series, the compact C20 cargo hold cleaner and the HighMate Ultra surface-preparation robot. Founder and chief executive Hua-Yang Xu told delegates the platform is "taking on more demanding work in industrial settings," from ship hulls and storage tanks to bridges and wind turbines.
Why the Timing Matters
The Hamburg debut lands just nine days after the company closed a Series C round led by Qianggang Capital that will accelerate industrialisation of its embodied-AI hull-derusting fleet, a story detailed in our earlier coverage of RobotPlusPlus's Series C for shipyard robotics. It also arrives while the International Federation of Robotics is reporting that industrial-robot installations have crossed five million units, a milestone we unpacked in the World Robotics 2026 report.
Patent Portfolio and Global Reach
Founded in 2015 by Tsinghua University PhDs, RobotPlusPlus now holds more than 480 patents and ships across six continents. HighMate's four-wheel magnetic crawlers, ATEX-certified modules and 99% wastewater recovery are aimed squarely at yards and refiners that are being pushed off manual grit blasting by both worker-safety regulators and coating-emission standards. Analysts in Hamburg pointed to the growing overlap with autonomous marine platforms covered in our Kraken Robotics Covelya acquisition file.
What to Watch Next
RobotPlusPlus said it will follow SMM with deployment updates from European shipyard customers before year-end, and hinted at a HighMate export configuration tuned for offshore wind-turbine maintenance – a segment where humanoid entrants profiled in our Agility Robotics form-factor coverage are still years from readiness.
Reporting based on coverage from GlobeNewswire and RobotPlusPlus.