A humanoid robot built by Beijing-based X-Humanoid completed a 100-metre sprint in 8.64 seconds at the second annual World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, Nature reported. The result earned a gold medal and improved on the same machine's 21.5-second time recorded the previous year.
Another X-Humanoid robot achieved a standing vertical jump of 3.4 metres during the event, which ran from 22 to 26 August. A third robot played an exhibition table-tennis match against a human Olympian. More than 600 teams took part in the games, drawn primarily from Chinese universities, research institutes, and robotics businesses. Booster Robotics chief executive Cheng Hao said his Beijing firm entered nearly 300 robots into the competition.
Dexterity and Daily Tasks
Organisers expanded the event beyond track-and-field tests to include scenario-based trials such as shelving books and making beds. The scoring system awarded higher marks to machines that completed tasks autonomously than to those directed by human teleoperators. Aya Durbin, who directs Atlas humanoid robot development at Boston Dynamics, told Nature that practical tasks are necessary to ensure humanoids do not remain toys.
Machines at the competition continued to struggle with tasks requiring fine motor control. Stanford University computer scientist Karen Liu explained that track-and-field movements follow prescribed trajectories with exact torque requirements, whereas everyday tasks require flexible physical dexterity. Robotic grippers continue to have difficulty securing tools firmly enough to exert strong force, as demonstrated when competing machines struggled to hammer nails into a corkboard while controlled by humans wearing sensor gloves.
