Beijing’s Yizhuang district (also famously known as the Beijing E-Town) recently hosted the second edition of the robotic half-marathon, a competition designed specifically to push humanoid robotics beyond short, choreographed tech demos. The event had thousands of humans compete on the same route, operating and maneuvering the robots while they ran in separate lanes alongside. The robots weren’t there to prove they can be better than humans much as how they can operate reliably on high impact and long-distance activities such as running.
Why does this matter at a practical level? Because endurance is now on a scale as well. A robot that can run for an hour can potentially walk for hours (or days) in a factory, warehouse or a disaster site, environments where stability, navigation and power efficiency can transfer into real industry scenarios.
This year’s participation was larger than last year (roughly 21 humanoid robots) with more than 100 robots taking part in the event, with robots ranging from fully autonomous navigators to units guided remotely. There was also international participation in the competition, including Germany, France, Portugal and Brazil, although Chinese teams took a hold of most of the participation.
Organizers used rules that could favor autonomy, including multiplying the finishing times of teams for remote-controlled robots by 1.2, a measure Liang Liang, deputy secretary general of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, said was intended to “encourage the research and development of autonomous navigation.”
The robot Lightning, developed by the Chinese smartphone company Honor, was the standout in the autonomous category, finishing the half marathon in just 50 minutes, 26 seconds. The current world record held by a human was set by Ugandan Olympic medalist Jacob Kiplimo 57 minutes and 20 seconds, seven minutes longer than this android counterpart. Impressive considering than just a year ago, this same half-marathon took robots two and a half hours to complete this same distance.
But this race was still messy in the way other engineerings test often are, with multiple robots stumbling along the way, veering into barriers and needing help from their teams along the course. Even the winning robot hit a barricade near the end of the race and needed to be helped up before finishing. But what was clear was that the advances in the robotic industry have taken a huge stride in comparison to last year. This year, several front runners posted times that professional human runners would dream of achieving.
