BEIJING: Twenty-one humanoid robots joined thousands of runners at the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing on Saturday, the first time these machines have raced alongside humans over a 21-km (13-mile) course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The robots from Chinese manufacturers such as DroidUP and Noetix Robotics came in all shapes and sizes, some shorter than 120 cm (3.9 ft), others as tall as 1.8 m (5.9 ft). One company boasted that its robot looked almost human, with feminine features and the ability to wink and smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some firms tested their robots for weeks before the race. Beijing officials have described the event as more akin to a race car competition, given the need for engineering and navigation teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe robots are running very well, very stable \u2026 I feel I\u2019m witnessing the evolution of robots and AI,\u201d said spectator He Sishu, who works in artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The robots were accompanied by human trainers, some of whom had to physically support the machines during the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few of the robots wore running shoes, with one donning boxing gloves and another wearing a red headband with the words \u201cBound to Win\u201d in Chinese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The winning robot was Tiangong Ultra, from the Beijing Innovation Center of Human Robotics, with a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes. The men\u2019s winner of the race had a time of 1 hour and 2 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The centre is 43 per cent owned by two state-owned enterprises, while tech giant Xiaomi\u2019s 1810.HK robotics arm and leading Chinese humanoid robot firm UBTech have equal share in the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tang Jian, chief technology officer for the robotics centre, said Tiangong Ultra\u2019s performance was aided by long legs and an algorithm allowing it to imitate how humans run a marathon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to boast but I think no other robotics firms in the West have matched Tiangong\u2019s sporting achievements,\u201d Tang said, adding that the robot switched batteries just three times during the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some robots, like Tiangong Ultra, completed the race, while others struggled from the beginning. One robot fell at the starting line and lay flat for a few minutes before getting up and taking off. One crashed into a railing after running a few metres, causing its human operator to fall over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although humanoid robots have made appearances at marathons in China over the past year, this is the first time they have raced alongside humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China is hoping that investment in frontier industries like robotics can help create new engines of economic growth. Some analysts, though, question whether having robots enter marathons is a reliable indicator of their industrial potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alan Fern, professor of computer science, artificial intelligence and robotics at Oregon State University, said contrary to claims from Beijing officials that such a race requires \u201cAI breakthroughs\u201d, the software enabling humanoid robots to run was developed and demonstrated more than five years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChinese companies have really focused on showing off walking, running, dancing, and other feats of agility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGenerally, these are interesting demonstrations, but they don\u2019t demonstrate much regarding the utility of useful work or any type of basic intelligence,\u201d Fern said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tang, the robotic centre\u2019s CTO, said: \u201cA focus going forward for us will be industrial applications for humanoid robots so they can truly enter factories, business scenarios, and finally households.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING: Twenty-one humanoid robots joined thousands of runners at the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing on Saturday, the first time these machines have raced alongside humans over a 21-km (13-mile) course. The robots from Chinese manufacturers such as DroidUP and Noetix Robotics came in all shapes and sizes, some shorter than 120 cm (3.9 ft), others as tall as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4294,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions\/4294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}