Beijing's robot half-marathon is back for its second year with far less embarassing results

Source: Engadget

Overview

The competition pits humanoid robots built by Chinese companies against each other over a 13‑mile (21 km) course. This year more than 100 robots entered the race.

Results

• First place: Honor’s red‑clad robot Lightning finished in 50 minutes 26 seconds, several minutes faster than the human world record set by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo last month.
• Podium sweep: Honor also claimed the remaining podium spots, with all three robots navigating the course autonomously, according to CCTV.

For comparison, the fastest robot in the 2022 event was Tiangong Ultra, which completed the course in 2 hours 40 minutes after receiving assistance from human operators.

Autonomy

• The BBC reported that about 40 % of the robots this year operated autonomously, while the remaining participants were remote‑controlled.
• Despite the improvements, the race still featured a fair share of crashes, including incidents involving Honor’s robots. (See the video of the crashes here).