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- Beijing’s Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon has been billed as the first half-marathon race between humans and robots
- It took place on Saturday, April 19, with the winning robot Tiangong Ultra finishing in two hours and 40 minutes
- Tiangong Ultra’s time is far slower than the world record time of 56 minutes and 42 seconds
Robots and humans faced off against each other in a race to the finish line on Saturday, April 19, in the Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon, which took place in Beijing.
The race, billed as the first of its kind, pitted real people against 21 robots, which ran the same challenging track on the other side of a barrier to show off the technological advances that are coming out of China.
Although many of the robots fell or ran out of power during the race, the winning robot — Tiangong Ultra, designed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre — finished in two hours and 40 minutes, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
Chen Xiaogen/VCG via AP
The robot’s final time fell far behind the 56 minutes and 42 seconds world record that Ugandan racer Jacob Kiplimo currently holds, according to reporting by CNN.
However, it is a marked improvement from earlier attempts. AP noted that Tiangong Ultra needed eight hours to complete the 13.1 mile race during an attempt that took place on January 22.
Improvements and upgrades helped the robot develop “a more stable posture with longer strides,” the outlet reported.
The AP reported that developers needed to consider “heat dissipation, component durability, system reliability and algorithm optimization to improve performance.”
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VCG/VCG via AP
Of course, organizers expected there to be some technical difficulties during the day.
“Some robots may not run elegantly or fall over and that’s normal. We’re still testing various technical approaches,” Jiang Guangzhi, director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, told AP.
That didn’t make attendees any less thrilled for the chance to watch.
“We are so excited. We are residents living nearby, and we got up at half past six to reach the site. We witnessed every single robot participating in the event, and we are very impressed by the progress China has made in this regard,” Wang Lijuan, a spectator for the race, gushed to the outlet.
