Unitree’s upcoming humanoid robot might have painted a target on Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt’s back, but another Chinese robot has actually fired the first shot. On target, as it happens. Over the weekend, several man-shaped robots competed in a 100-metre sprint event at the World Humanoid Robot Games. You can probably see where this is going.
The quickest robot shaved a few molecules off Usain Bolt’s 2009 world record of 9.58 seconds, coming in at 9.39 seconds. It wasn’t alone, either. The second-place ‘runner’ finished in 9.47 seconds, also beating Bolt’s record. There’s a joke in there about these runners being held together by bolts, but it’s moving too fast for us to see it.
High-speed humanoid
Honor’s Lightning robot, which recently beat the best human time for a half-marathon, was the second-place finisher. The speediest fellow, Tiangong Ultra, was made by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre. The robots are certainly quick, but there’s one slight problem with them. That would be a lack of stopping power or, perhaps, not enough runway to slow down.
Instead, the ‘bots slam into a cushion at the end of their races. It’s not enough to prevent damage or outright destruction, in some cases. Whatever other human frailties exist, it’s hard to snap your spine after a good, hard sprint. Unless you happen to do so in front of a speeding bus.
Reuters reports that unofficial times for Honor’s Lightning robot had the bipedal machine completing its task in 9.32 seconds. But that’s when the cameras (and speed sensors) weren’t rolling, so it doesn’t count. Just like human competition. The competitors have more than halved their times since last year’s competition. Assuming they keep standard human configurations and don’t replace feet with spring blades, there’s probably some limit to how much quicker they can go while remaining unexploded at the end of the race.
