China opens door for robots to participate in Beijing half-marathon

China has opened the door for humanoid robots to run in a Beijing half-marathon coming up in April this year.

A local news source reported on 4 March that the half-marathon to be held in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area in southeast Beijing on April 13, will have robotic and human athletes compete along the same route.

However, humanoids will run along their own separate tracks, secured with barriers or green belts to ensure the safety of both humans and robots.

What to know

Robots have a cutoff time of approximately 3 hours and 30 minutes for the race. Teams are permitted to replace batteries or switch robots in a relay format during the race.

To assess the outcome of the race, the completion time and the number of robot replacements will be considered, with a 10-minute penalty applied for each replacement.

To qualify, robots must feature a humanoid design and be capable of bipedal walking or running, excluding wheeled structures.

Teams will be held responsible if their robots damage the tracks, other robots, or personnel in any way. They must also ensure that the robots strictly follow their designated routes and all technical rules for the race.

The winner of the half-marathon robot competition gets an award of 5,000, the runner-up gets 4,000, and third place, 3,000 yuan, equivalent to about 697, 558 and 418 U.S. dollars respectively.

Other awards are the Completion Award, Best Endurance Award and Most Creative Design Award as well as special accolades awarded to humanoid robot development teams.

Participants can come from global robot companies, research institutes, robot clubs and universities.

Expanding the scope of relevance

Artificial technology was only relevant in certain areas of human endeavor such as internet research.

However, that scope is expanding rapidly with humanoid robots. The industry is expected to grow rapidly from here and the technology to grow in relevance as well.