Tien Kung Omni humanoid robots dash on the 400-meter run small-group ultimate on the 2nd World Humanoid Robotic Video games held in Beijing on August 23, 2026. Photograph: Tao Mingyang/GT
A humanoid robotic that grabbed a 400-meter title on the 2nd World Humanoid Robotic Video games (WHRG) in Beijing whereas showing to “cowl its face with each arms” developed the bizarre posture by itself throughout sprinting, its builders mentioned, after clips of the run drew huge consideration on-line.
Tien Kung Omni, constructed by the Beijing-based X-Humanoid, gained the 400-meter run small-group ultimate on Sunday in 45.66 seconds. Reasonably than swinging its arms ahead and again as a human sprinter does, the robotic ran with its heart of gravity pitched ahead and its arms held excessive close to its face, swinging them extensively as its hips rotated back and forth — a gait viewers likened to “a shy particular person hiding behind their arms.”
The posture was not what engineers had in thoughts. “We initially designed Tien Kung Omni’s gait round a human-style arm swing,” Han Gang, a movement management algorithm skilled on the firm, informed the World Occasions. In a simulated studying atmosphere, the crew gave the robotic steady rewards, and thru repeated iteration on the information it progressively settled right into a posture that suited it higher. “It feels that that is extra comfy,” Han mentioned.
The reason being a bodily constraint, Han defined. Swinging the arms quickly locations a heavy load on the shoulder joints, which may trigger them to warmth up and drive up vitality consumption — leaving the robotic unable to maintain the total 400m. Working with its arms close to its face permits the robotic to finish the gap rapidly whereas retaining its legs highly effective and its arms beneath low load.
Totally different distances pose totally different issues, Han added. In endurance occasions such because the humanoid half-marathon, engineers must pay nearer consideration to warmth dissipation within the hip joints after lengthy durations of working. Over shorter distances such because the 100m and 400m, hip overload is way much less of a priority.
The subsequent problem, Han mentioned, lies past the monitor: robots might want to work together with extra complicated environments and full duties whereas being disturbed by outdoors forces. “As soon as there’s a breakthrough, we could quickly see sudden functions throughout many fields,” he mentioned.
Within the large-group 400-meter run ultimate held earlier the identical day, the corporate’s Tien Kung Extremely took gold in 38.15 seconds. The time is quicker than the boys’s 400m world document of 43.03 seconds, set by South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk on the 2016 Rio Olympics and nonetheless standing after a decade.
The margin displays how rapidly the sphere is shifting. On the first version of the video games final yr, the profitable 400m time was 1 minute 28.03 seconds — practically 50 seconds slower.
World Occasions
