On its six flexible legs, the insect-shaped robot dubbed "tumblebug" demonstrated how it can walk up and down stairs at the World Robot Conference 2017 held in Beijing on Friday.

The smart manufacturing six-legged robot, developed by the Smart Walking Robot Center of Shanghai Jiaotong University, is one of the unmanned systems exhibited at the event.

Chen Xianbao, a teacher from the center, said the robot has strong loading capacity and can adapt well to complex terrain, which makes it an ideal solution for operations in extreme environments, such as nuclear power plants.

"The robot is co-developed by us and the China General Nuclear Power Corporation and it might be commercially available in the future," Chen said.

Various kinds of unmanned systems, such as Equilateral Triangle Planetary Gear and Track Hybrid Wheeled Unmanned Platform designed by the Army Officer Academy of PLA, have also displayed their skills at the WRC 2017.

Watch this to see a live demo.