Humanoid robots have now taken to the football field in China as four teams compete in a ROBO League football tournament in Beijing.
According to Straits Times, despite stumbling and struggling to play a 3v3 football match in China, humanoid robots and artificial intelligence (AI) marked a major breakthrough on Saturday.
Wearing black and purple jerseys, the three-player teams played a 5-3 match of two 10-minute halves.
Teams from the leading Tsinghua University and schools participated in the tournament won by Tsinghua’s Vulcan team.
However, the matches were more about testing the humanoid robots balance, decision-making skills, and performance in a fast-paced soccer game than actually a tournament.
Samir Menon, founder and chief executive of robotics startup Dexterity, said, “Such demonstrations with human-form robots are currently focused on inspiring people’s imaginations. There’ll be thousands of different types of robots and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of types of applications.”
The child-sized robots have advanced visual sensors which helped them in identifying the ball. Although they were designed in a way that they were able to stand up without any help after falling, some of them still required human assistance.
Morgan Stanley analysts said, “China is not only the largest market but also is arguably the world’s innovation hub, propelling cost efficiencies and next-gen robotics development.”
As per a report published by Morgan Stanley, China’s robotics market, which is currently a $47 billion market, is expected to grow at the rate of 23% per year and reach $108 billion by 2028.
It was also projected that China will have 302.3 million humanoid robots by 2050, surpassing the US's 77.7 million.
