Startup debuts soccer-playing android

A Chinese startup has released its first soccer-playing humanoid robot, with the vision to win a robot soccer tournament in the mid-21st century.

The first soccer-playing humanoid robot. File Photo

Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics went viral recently thanks to a robot dog test video; now it made headlines for the Unitree G1-Comp, a “football icon designed for competitions.” The company posted videos of the android kicking a ball, running, turning, and getting up after falling on its website alongside detailed technical specifications.

The G1-Comp is similar in traits to the G1 prototype, standing at about 1.3 meters tall, weighing 35 kilograms, moving at two meters per second, and having an up-to-two-hour battery life. The new version is optimized with more freedom of head movement and camera configuration to improve visual coverage.

Although Unitree has yet to announce any plans to compete in soccer events, it has included a RoboCup development guide, allowing users to enhance the robot’s visual recognition, spatial positioning, and motion control via an application programming interface to improve its performance on the pitch.

The RoboCup is a robot soccer tournament that has been held each year since its inception in 1997. “By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup,” according to the organizers’ goal.