Unitree’s G1 humanoid robot has learned a few things since it stepped into the ring to do battle with itself. The Chinese robotics company has released a new video showing some of its new capabilities, all of which revolve around some kind of unarmed combat.
Specifically, around martial arts. Though some of its creators spend the opening minutes of the video kicking it around, the G1 manages to quickly right itself and continue with its routine. That may well be the most technically impressive bit, but there’s a little more at the end to worry about, too.
That flipping G1 again
Once the kicking stops (and humans are probably going to have to answer for this treatment one day), the G1 robot slides into a series of choreographed martial arts routines that could have been yanked from Jet Li or Donnie Yen films, specifically those that deal with Wing Chun. These appear pre-programmed and don’t give the robot much room to be reactive, but they’re the most visually impressive.
The earlier bits — the kicking, remember — are more striking, as they show the artificial humanoid reacting and resetting in real time. Compared to its time in the ring, where the G1’s tracking was sometimes off, responses to impacts appear to be faster. Unitree calls this its “Anti-Gravity” mode and explains that “stability is greatly improved under any action sequence, and even if it falls, it can quickly get back up.”
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How it would fare in another match remains to be seen, but there would probably be more backflips.
That’s because the Unitree G1 is now capable of those, too, albeit while landing in the knee-down superhero pose most popular movie watchers are now highly familiar with. And not just one, but a series of consecutive flips, complete with on-the-spot balance compensation. The Chinese robot is looking distressingly capable.
Even so, it’s still less scary than the Unitree A2 Stellar Hunter, which looks imminently ready to chase down enemy troops on a battlefield while said enemies gibber in abject terror.
