Most men feel like something is missing when the football season is over . Their weekly routine gets disrupted because there are no real games to watch anymore. However, in Beijing, China, they have found a new way of entertainment while the real players get their well-deserved rest. They now have fully autonomous football matches with humanoid robots! Keep on reading to discover more about it.
AI football players
In Beijing, China, multiple University Robotics teams competed against each other in a humanoid robot football tournament. The games were 3v3 and had no human intervention to control the robots. However, there were substitutes for robots that had fallen to the ground and gotten “hurt”. The tournament is part of China’s plan to test out the abilities of AI-powered humanoid robots
Eventually, it was Tsinghua University’s THU Robotics team that won the tournament with a 5-3 game. This tournament was a little preview of the upcoming World Humanoid Robotic Games. While this won’t be as spectacular as seeing Messi or Ronaldo dribble across the field, it is a fun thing to watch if you have some extra time. If you’re interested in seeing if these robots knew how to play, then check out a little bit of the games by watching the video below!
How did the robots know where to go?
The robots were running solely on Artificial Intelligence to keep them going. There was no human intervention during the games. This was made possible by using advanced visual sensors that helped them navigate the field and identify the ball.
The company Booster Robotics provided the universities with all the hardware needed. Then, each university team had to develop its own AI algorithms, which had to include things like perception, decision-making, and strategy. Ceo Chenk Hao also emphasized that safety should be a very important part of the future of Human-robot competitions.
