In the recently held “2025 World Robot Conference” one of the supporting activities – China Intelligent Robot Athletics Invitational Tournament, a group of robots dressed in jerseys, anthropomorphic appearance in the soccer field running, passing, shooting, and even make a roll to save the difficult action, attracted the attention of countless spectators. From Tsinghua University, Harbin Institute of Technology and Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and other universities of the R&D team demonstrated the humanoid robot in a dynamic environment of intelligent decision-making, precision control, and movement coordination capabilities, marking a breakthrough in the field of robot movement intelligence in China.
Realistic Staging of the “Robot World Cup”
The game was modeled after the FIFA futsal rules, and the robot team had to rely on autonomous algorithms for visual recognition, tactical coordination, and body control. Although there were no human players on the field, the audience still felt the fierce confrontation atmosphere.
“Shot! Goal!” When HiBot-X, a humanoid robot developed by Harbin Institute of Technology, fired a shot into the goal, the audience erupted in applause. Its teammate “HiBot-GK” even in the second half, to make a sideways tumbling save, showing an amazing dynamic balance and flexibility.
According to reports, the average height of these robots is about 1.3 meters, equipped with binocular cameras, an IMU inertial navigation system, plantar pressure sensors, and high-torque servo motors, able to achieve bipedal stable walking, change of direction running, humanoid action recognition, and complex strategy judgment.
Integration of Multiple Core Technologies
The competition is not only a display of science and technology, but also epitomizes the integration and application of China’s robotics technology in a number of cutting-edge fields. According to the head of Tsinghua University’s Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, the key technologies behind these robots include:
- High-precision gait control algorithm: to ensure that the robot maintains its balance and avoids falling during high-speed movement.
- Real-time environment perception and path planning: relies on cameras and LIDAR to build maps and autonomously recognize goals, opponents, and obstacles.
- Autonomous tactical decision-making system: integrates deep learning and reinforcement learning strategies to enable the robot to make judgments on passing, defense, and offense like a human player.
- Modularized Bionic Mechanical Structure: Adopting lightweight alloy and flexible joint structure to make the robot’s movements more natural to human beings.
Chinese R&D Team Shines
“We hope to challenge the integration limits of robot systems through highly dynamic scenarios like soccer,” said Prof. Li, coach of the team from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He said that unlike static tasks such as screwing screws and carrying goods, soccer matches require robots to have extremely high perception, prediction and response speeds, and are an important platform for measuring integrated AI and engineering capabilities.
Observers from the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences pointed out that the Chinese team has made rapid progress in recent years in autonomous robot control, chip computing efficiency, bionic structure design, etc., and the gap with the international advanced level has been gradually narrowed, and some areas have been in the parallel running stage.
Attracting International Attention and Cooperation Intention
The event also attracted representatives of research institutions from Germany, Japan, South Korea, and other countries to observe. A robotics expert from the University of Tokyo said that China’s transformation from a “robot manufacturing power” to a “robotics power” in just a few years is surprising. In addition, some foreign robotics companies expressed their willingness to conduct joint R&D or technical cooperation with Chinese universities, especially in the areas of intelligent control chips and human-robot interaction algorithms, hoping to carry out in-depth exchanges.
Wide Prospect of Technology Application
These highly maneuverable humanoid robots not only showed excellent performance in the competition, but also attracted wide attention for their future application scenarios. For example, they are expected to enter complex and dangerous environments in post-disaster rescue, replacing human beings to perform search and rescue tasks; assisting mobility-impaired people in rehabilitation training in the medical field; being used for children’s science education and popularization demonstrations in education and entertainment; and collaborating with the AI system in the field of intelligent security to carry out dynamic patrols and identify abnormal behaviors. Huang Zhixin, Secretary General of China Intelligent Robot Industry Alliance, said, “The development of humanoid robots is not only an engineering achievement, but will also profoundly affect the social structure and service model.”
National Policy Support to Increase
In recent years, China has listed intelligent robots as one of the key directions of strategic emerging industries. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology previously released the “14th Five-Year Plan” for the development of the robotics industry, by 2025, China will build the world’s leading robotics innovation system, and strive to achieve several landmark achievements in the areas of core components, system integration, and industry applications.
As a platform to showcase the achievements, the Robot Soccer Match will not only stimulate the public’s enthusiasm for science and technology, but also help to promote the relevant technology to practical applications.
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