The robot slowly runs a half marathon
Humanoid robots seem to have a long way to go before catching up with human runners.
The Beijing e-town high-tech hub hosted what is described as the first world’s first humanoid half marathon on Saturday, with 21 humanoid robots competing with thousands of humans.
The winning robot, Tiangon Ultra, was built by the government-supported laboratory X-Humanoid, and finished the race in 2 hours and 40 minutes. This is not an impressive time for humans. The race winner runner finished in 1 hour and 2 minutes. It’s normal for casual runners to complete half marathons (brag alert) Less than 2 hours.
The Tiangong Ultra needed human assistance to win. In particular, he advanced with a signaling device on his back, allowing the robot to mimic his movements. (Most other robots are remotely controlled, with human operators running sideways.)
All other robots needed at least 3 hours to complete the race, but only four hours of robots in total completed the 4-hour cutoff time earlier. According to Bloomberg. Some robots barely made it past the starting line – for example, Shenon Stumbled on a human support runnerthen slammed against the fence and shattered. At one point, the Little Giant (the shortest competitor, 30 inches tall) paused when smoke appeared from his head.
Beijing’s E-Town Humanoid Robot Half Marathon featured robots built not only by student groups but also by Chinese companies. (Unitree’s G1 robot fell to the starting line, but the company said its client used the robot without an algorithm.)
To compete, the robot had to have a humanoid appearance and run on two legs. They ran from humans in different fenced lanes, with staggered start times to reduce the risk of hitting each other. Battery changes were allowed (Tiangong Ultra’s battery changed three times).
Tian Jiang, Chief Technology Officer of X-Humanoid I told Reuters“I don’t want to boast about it, but I don’t think other robotics companies in the West are comparable to the achievements of Tiangon’s sports.”