A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps.
The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began.
That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race.
Photo: AFP
The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward from last year’s inaugural race, during which the winning robot finished in two hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds.
However, the competition, which was held alongside a race for humans, was not without hiccups — one robot fell flat at the starting line, while another bumped into a barrier.
Honor test development engineer Du Xiaodi (杜曉迪) said his team was happy with the results.
The robot design was modeled on outstanding human athletes, with long legs of about 95cm, and was equipped with a powerful liquid-cooling system, which was largely developed in-house, Du added.
“Looking ahead, some of these technologies might be transferred to other areas. For example, structural reliability and liquid-cooling technology could be applied in future industrial scenarios,” he said.
While it would still take time to achieve widespread commercialization of humanoid robots, spectators were already impressed by the robots.
Sun Zhigang, who had been in the audience last year, watched Sunday’s race with his son.
“I feel enormous changes this year,” Sun said. “It’s the first time robots have surpassed humans, and that’s something I never imagined.”
Wang Wen, who came with his family, said robots seemed to have stolen much of the spotlight from human runners in the event.
“The robots’ speed far exceeds that of humans,” he said. “This may signal the arrival of sort of a new era.”
Beijing E-Town said about 40 percent of the robots navigated the course autonomously, while the others were remotely controlled.
State media outlet the Global Times reported that a separate, remotely controlled robot from Honor was the first to cross the finish line in 48 minutes and 19 seconds, but the winning one used autonomous navigation and received the championship under the event’s weighted scoring rules.
State broadcaster China Central Television reported that the runners-up, which were also from Honor and used autonomous navigation, finished the race in about 51 minutes and 53 minutes respectively.
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