Humanoid robots are Silicon Valley’s latest obsession, but real-world performance has lagged the hype. Which may be starting to vary, nevertheless, after a robot beat the human record for a half marathon by nearly seven minutes in Beijing.
While tech firms around the globe are piling into humanoid robots, China has made it a national priority. The federal government is pouring subsidies and infrastructure investment into the sector, and Chinese firms already account for around 80 percent of the humanoid machines shipped globally, based on the South China Morning Post.
Wanting to showcase its prowess, China has been staging sporting events for robots, most notably last yr’s inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games. One other such event, the Beijing E-Town Half Marathon, pits humanoid robots against hundreds of human runners over a 13-mile course. Last yr, a lot of the non-human competitors did not finish, and the fastest robots managed an unimpressive two hours and 40 minutes.
But this time around, 4 robots clocked times under an hour. And the winner, made by Chinese smartphone company Honor, registered a record-breaking 50 minutes, 26 seconds, eclipsing the benchmark set by Ugandan long-distance runner Jacob Kiplimo in Lisbon last month.
“Running faster may not seem meaningful at first, however it enables technology transfer, for instance, into structural reliability and cooling, and eventually industrial applications,” Du Xiaodi, an engineer on the winning team, told Reuters.
Greater than 100 teams fielded 300 robots at this yr’s event, up from just 21 entries on the inaugural event last yr. But Honor, a by-product from Chinese telecom giant Huawei, dominated the competition, with separate teams from the corporate taking all three podium spots.
The winning robot, Lightning, navigated the course entirely autonomously. The bot stands 5 feet 6 inches tall but features legs 37 inches long to mimic the physical attributes of elite runners. It also boasts liquid cooling technology utilized in the corporate’s smartphones.
The growing sophistication of the robots’ control software is probably one in every of the starkest shifts since last yr, with roughly 40 percent of teams operating autonomously. This is especially impressive given the difficult course, based on Bernstein Research analysts.
“The course included flat sections, slopes, narrow passages, and ~ 20 turns, demonstrating rapid improvement in robots’ intelligence to handle generalized environments in the actual world,” they wrote, based on Bloomberg.
However the technology is not bulletproof yet. One robot bumped into a barricade and needed to be carried off on a stretcher. One other veered right into a bush after crossing the finish line. And one continued racing with its torso held together by packing tape after a heavy fall.
Nonetheless, the race showcased the rapid progress China’s tech industry is making, particularly within the raw components used to construct these machines, like motors, joints, and batteries. Liu Xiangquan, a robotics professor at Beijing Information Science and Technology University told The South China Morning Post that long-distance running is an excellent test of how well these components can arise to the form of repeated strain that can occur in industrial settings.
And that’s prone to cause some consternation in US policy circles, where many see robotics as a key battlefront within the growing technological rivalry between the 2 superpowers.
Behind Sunday’s spectacle is a higher-stakes contest between China and the US over who will dominate the subsequent generation of humanoids. US robotics firms have been lobbying Washington to draft a national technique to counter China, which could include tariffs or bans on Chinese robots to assist protect domestic producers.
Nevertheless, running fast in a straight line is a really different challenge than the fantastic motor control and perception demanded by industrial applications. Experts told Reuters that despite impressive hardware, robotics firms are still a great distance from developing the subtle software required to place these humanoids to practical use.
Still, these machines struggled to recover from the starting line only a yr ago. The gap between humanoid robots and human athletes has closed faster than anyone expected, so betting against further rapid progress seems unwise.