| Robots Run Half Marathon - At Snail's Pace |
| Written by Lucy Black | |||
| Sunday, 20 April 2025 | |||
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Yesterday more than 20 robots raced against thousands of human runners in a half-marathon in Beijing organized to showcase China’s advances in humanoid technology. The course covered 21.0975 kilometers through Beijing's Economic-Technological Development Area and was physically divided into two lanes to ensure safety, As far as the robots were concerned Beijing officials described the event as more akin to a race car competition, given the need for engineering and navigation teams, with some firms testing their robots for weeks before the race. On the day itself every participating robot was accompanied by engineers who provided maintenance such as changing their batteries and picking up when they fell over. All the robots were closely controlled by their human minders who in many cases kept hold of them by a short leash or handle.
One robot fell before the start line, though it did manage to stand up after some minimal intervention, while another, a wheeled robot which far from humanoid in appearance crashed into the lane barrier - so there's clearly still room for improvement when it comes to stability.
Then there's the question of speed. While we've seen demos of robots running with human style and pace, notably the Unitree G1, the robots in this half marathon, a race that requires endurance as well as peed, were slow. The winning robot was Tiangong Ultra, from the Beijing Innovation Center of Human Robotics, with a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes well over twice the time of the men's winner of the race who had a time of 1 hour and 2 minutes. Commenting on the result, Tang Jian, CTO for company said: "I don't want to boast but I think no other robotics firms in the West have matched Tiangong's sporting achievements," adding that the robot switched batteries just three times during the race. Tiangong Ultra's algorithm enables it to imitate how humans run a marathon. It stands 6 feet tall for optimal stride length and while capable of running at 10 kilometers per hour indoors, it engineers had set a stable pace of 7 to 8 kilometers per hour for the half marathon. Finishing in 3 hours and 37 minutes, way after any of the human competitors, was N2 from Noetix Robotics (aka Songyan Dynamic). Intended for research and education purposes, N2 is around 4 feet in height with a price tag equivalent to $6000 USD, which is really cheap in the robot industry.
Neotix Founder Jiang Zheyhan told Bloomberg: "It is a huge challenge for a robot to run for this long. We didn't think our robot would would be able to accomplish this race." Another N2 initially finished third but was later demoted to fourth due to penalties. Xiong Yougin, General Manager of the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center told the press: This performance was pretty much in line with our expectations. Just being here and participating in this race feels like a victory. Finishing the race should be considered a greater triumph than winning.
In total, six humanoid robots successfully completed the half-marathon.
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 20 April 2025 ) |
