Xinhua News Agency, Nanjing, April 27 (Reporters Ke Gaoyang, Li Li, He Leijing) Round-trip racing, football competition, robot fighting... The first Embodied Intelligent Robot Games was recently held in Wuxi, Jiangsu, and more than 150 robot "players" competed on the sports field. The previous 2025 Beijing Yizhuang Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon have attracted widespread attention, and Beijing also plans to hold the World Humanoid Robot Games this year.

　　From running a "half-marathon" to sports games, why do robots have to work in sports?

"It's a mule or a horse, take it out and take a walk": Why do you choose sports for robot testing?

　　In the 2V2 robot football match at the first Embodied Intelligent Robot Games, the red and blue robots alternated on the simulated green field, contributing famous scenes such as "heel goal" and "midfield shot"; in the shooting game, the robot "Iron Dun" tamped his wrist, and won a lot of lottery after hitting all ten shots...

　　"Sports competition provides complex and diverse real scenarios, which means a test from perceived environment to information analysis, and from real-time decision-making to motion control, which is exactly what robot research and development requires." In the view of Li Chenxi, PhD in Computer Science and PhD in the Department of Sports at Tsinghua University, sports competition is an ideal test field for robotics technology, and an important step for robots to take the laboratory and move towards real production and life.

　　International competitions have always been a test site for high-tech. From the timing systems and high-speed cameras in the Olympic stadium to the tennis "Hawkeye" and World Cup VAR (Video Assistant Referee) technology, humans are constantly applying new technologies to sports.

　　Sports need technology, and technology also needs sports. "It's a mule or a horse, take it out for a walk." One audience member's speech hit the nail on the head. Robot competition is a comprehensive technology test.

　　"Why do you engage in sports?" said Guo Dahong, deputy general manager of the humanoid robot business department of a technology company in Jiangsu: "It is to design the robot's performance more stably and reliably and expand to the application field." The endurance of marathons, fighting confrontation, and dribbling movements simulate the complex dynamic environment in reality, testing the robot's comprehensive capabilities such as motion control, environmental perception, and energy management.

　　The competitive sports have embarked on a "one way" for robot research and development and testing, and have also opened a "window" for robots to approach the public and enter the market.

　　Technological innovation also requires "faster, higher, stronger - more unity". Wang Yitao, event director of Xuanzhi (Shenzhen) Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., said: "Everyone is seeking breakthroughs. The ability to display the cutting-edge technologies of so many robot R&D companies in this sports meet will undoubtedly promote cutting-edge information exchange and technology integration."

　　Taking advantage of the high attention and entertainment of sports events to promote robots from laboratories to public vision is also a great benefit to eliminating the public's sense of technological distance and enhancing social awareness.

　　This robot sports meet received enthusiastic support from ordinary citizens. Mr. Wang from Shanghai came to watch the game with his 6-year-old son. He lamented that after a game, the child's interest in robots has greatly improved, "it is much better than reading books."

　　The heads of many participating companies admitted that they hope to use the competition to gain more exposure for their robots, expand application scenarios, and discover more potential market opportunities.

"Steel Athlete" takes the field: Why are the participating robots obsessed with "humanoids"?

　　The humanoid robot "Tiangong Ultra" who participated in the half-marathon in Yizhuang, Beijing is 1.8 meters tall, and has two long legs, good at running; the "Tornado Boy" with a stable center of gravity and a long range is a small head, wearing children's shoes; the robot "Accelerating T1" who participated in the football competition is only 1.2 meters tall, but it is unambiguous when shooting the goal...

On April 19, Tiangong team player Tiangong Ultra (second from left) rushed to the finish line in the game. On the same day, the 2025 Beijing Yizhuang Half Marathon and the Humanoid Robot Half Marathon were held in Yizhuang, Beijing. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Xin
　　The "height, short, fat and thin" of these participating robots are different, but they all imitate human figures. Since it is a machine, why are you obsessed with being a "person"?

　　"If a robot wants to serve humans, it must first adapt to the human environment." Xu Baoguo, deputy director of the Institute of Robotic Sensing and Control Technology of Southeast University, told reporters that in daily life, from the height of stairs and steps to the shape of the door handle, including the size of sports equipment to the layout of the competition venue, are all tailor-made according to the human body structure. "Imagine if a robot playing football has no feet but uses a wheeled chassis, it may never be able to adapt to the rules of real courts and football games."

　　At the Humanoid Robot Hundred People Conference held in Wuxi at the same time, Ding Han, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said that a pair of human feet can go to every corner of the world. Humanoid robots have a highly general form and can be used for various scenarios and complex operations, so humanoid robots are the best carriers of embodied intelligence.

　　Zhang Jianwei, a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believes that embodied intelligence is an important track in the future that can truly connect the physical world and solve the pain points of the physical world.

　　Practice has proven that robots’ humanoid design has unique advantages when facing real life scenarios. In the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing, the "Tiangong Ultra" robot successfully won the championship trophy with its humanoid joint structure. The robot with tracked design is not satisfactory when facing the complex terrain of the arena.

　　"Authorization" is also more likely to arouse people's "empathy". In the Yizhuang Half Horse in Beijing, the participating "Little Giant" robot appeared in a two-pack Nezha style and also interacted with the audience with hot online memes, becoming an "Internet celebrity" inside and outside the stadium.

　　Human beings’ natural sense of intimacy with humanoid forms is conducive to creating a future society where “human-machine prosper together”.

　　Guo Dahong believes that with the development of technology, a new model of sports for human-computer collaboration is expected to emerge. Compared to fighting with automated serving machines, the effectiveness of athletes in combat training with humanoid robots will be greatly improved.

　　The future growth points of robots that Ding Han is concerned about are also in service areas, such as medical rehabilitation, elderly care, and housekeeping robots, which are of great significance to coping with challenges such as an aging society.

"Toddler" is for "steady as fast as flying": Why are robot players a little "dish"?

　　The robot completion rate of the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing is only 30%, and the championship result of 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds is also far from the best results of human marathon athletes; in the football match of the first Embodied Intelligent Robot Games, the robot player was "injured" after tripping by himself and was carried out of the arena by the staff on a stretcher, contributing a lot of laughter to the audience...

　　The performance of the robot field is different from the public's expected science fiction scenes, and it has even repeatedly "turned over", which is in contrast to the public's exclamations when ChatGPT and DeepSeek emerged.

　　Zhang Jianwei said that ChatGPT and DeepSeek are only similar to the "brain area" we process text, but scenes such as movement involve the control of the "cerebellum" and the joint control of multimodals such as vision, hearing, and touch, which is much more complex.

　　"If a robot accidentally makes a fool of itself, we will be happier." Wang Yitao said that the motion control of robots in dynamic and complex environments is extremely challenging. The team hopes to use this to test stability and collect as much feedback data as possible in "actual combat" to improve and improve.

　　Robots take a small step, humans take a big step. Robot athletes are now "toddlers" like babies, just to move towards "steady as fast as flying".

　　"It seems to be clumsy, but it actually has great potential." Xu Baoguo is a "die-core fan" of the Robot Games. In his opinion, humanoid robots' commitment to sports is expected to drive technological breakthroughs in some fields. For example, fighting projects promote the development of flexible confrontation and rapid response strategies, football projects promote team collaboration algorithm optimization, and running projects test gait control and energy consumption management. Once these achievements mature, they will also empower human-machine coexistence and collaborative application scenarios such as rehabilitation training, assisted exercise, and disaster rescue, and have extremely high application value and commercialization potential.

　　From dancing on the Spring Festival Gala stage to playing football in the sports field, are these two the same robots?

　　Experts explained that although dancing and kicking are both "sports", dynamic control goals, rhythm response and stability strategies are different. Currently, most robots use targeted optimization algorithms, which are less versatile. With the continuous breakthroughs in key technologies such as multimodal fusion, meta-learning, and online adaptive control, the "one-specialized and multi-energy" multi-faceted mobile phone robot is expected to meet us in the near future.

　　The answers to the questions about the future are often hidden in history.

　　In 1894, the French held a car competition for the first time. Only 9 of the 102 cars registered completed a 128-kilometer schedule, and their stability and speed were not as stable as those of a carriage. When the world's first modern electronic digital computer was born in the United States in 1946, it weighed dozens of tons, and each adjustment of the calculation task took several days.

　　Making robots as flexible and intelligent as humans is the highest dream of humanoid robot research and development, but in the process of technological evolution, a lot of trial and error and patience are required. From the Spring Festival Gala stage to the sports arena, embossed intelligent robots have begun to enter the life scene and take the first step towards the people's families.

　　Let's wait and see.

[Editor in charge: Chen Tingyu]