BeijingHumanoid robot teams have gained admirers in Beijing based more on the AI technology used than on any shown athletic ability, but China’s men’s soccer squad hasn’t inspired much interest in recent years.
In what was billed as a first for China and a sneak peek at the World Humanoid Robot Games, which will be held in Beijing, four teams of humanoid robots competed in totally autonomous 3-on-3 soccer matches on Saturday night in the country’s capital, using only artificial intelligence.
One important feature of the battle, according to the organizers, was that every robot involved used AI-driven tactics to work completely on its own without any assistance or oversight from humans.
The robots’ sophisticated vision sensors allowed them to recognize the ball and move quickly across the field.
Additionally, they were made to get back up after falling on their own. To make the experience more realistic, personnel still had to carry a number of players off the field on stretchers during the game.
Using sporting events like football, boxing, and marathons as a real-world testing ground, China is increasing its attempts to create AI-powered humanoid robots.
Sports events provide the perfect environment for testing humanoid robots, according to Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Booster Robotics, the firm that provided the robot players. This helps to speed up the development of algorithms and integrated hardware-software systems.
He also underlined that one of the main concerns while using humanoid robots is safety.
We might set up robots to play football alongside people in the future. Cheng stated that this implies that we need to guarantee the robots’ total safety. For instance, a person and a robot could engage in a game where actual offensive and defensive interactions occur but winning is irrelevant. Audiences would gain confidence and comprehend that robots are safe as a result.
The research teams at each of the four universities created and integrated their own algorithms for sensing, decision-making, player formations, and passing techniques that included variables like speed, force, and direction, while Booster Robotics supplied the hardware for all four teams, Cheng said.
The THU Robotics team from Tsinghua University won the tournament by defeating the Mountain Sea team from China Agricultural University 5-3 in the final match.
Tsinghua supporter Mr. Wu praised the competition and hailed their triumph.
He claimed that they (THU) performed incredibly well. However, the Agricultural University’s Mountain Sea team was equally outstanding. They were somewhat unexpected.
China’s men have only participated in one World Cup and have already been eliminated from the competition in Canada, Mexico, and the United States for next year.
