The Humanoids at China’s Robot Games Were Faster Than Usain Bolt—but I’m More Impressed by Their Tweezer Mastery
The Humanoids at China’s Robot Games Were Faster Than Usain Bolt—but I’m More Impressed by Their Tweezer Mastery
中国机器人大赛上的类人机器人跑得比博尔特还快——但我更佩服它们用镊子的精细活
If you’re anything like me, the World Humanoid Robot Games are a highlight of your sporting calendar. The event, held in China, showcases the latest humanoid hardware, lots of algorithmic innovations, and a good dose of robot slapstick. This year’s iteration, which wrapped up in Beijing on August 26, did not disappoint. Besides record-breaking feats—the fastest humanoid on the planet!—and the occasional calamity—weightlifting gone wrong!—the games also included some new challenges that hint at the event’s real purpose: pushing humanoid companies to develop systems that inch closer and closer to practical deployment. 如果你和我一样，那么世界人形机器人大赛绝对是你体育日程表上的重头戏。这项在中国举办的赛事展示了最新的人形机器人硬件、大量的算法创新，以及不少机器人带来的滑稽场面。今年于8月26日在北京落幕的比赛没有让人失望。除了打破纪录的壮举（地球上跑得最快的人形机器人！）和偶尔发生的灾难（举重失败！），比赛还加入了一些新的挑战，暗示了该活动的真正目的：推动人形机器人公司开发出越来越接近实际应用场景的系统。
First, though, let’s marvel at some of the more dramatic happenings, which have been all over the internet since things kicked off on August 22. The opening ceremony showcased the sheer size of the event—the organizers say that more than 600 teams showed up with over 2,000 robots. There are more than 100 humanoid robot manufacturers in China alone, and participants also traveled in from 15 other countries. 首先，让我们先来惊叹一下自8月22日开赛以来在网上疯传的一些戏剧性瞬间。开幕式展示了此次活动的巨大规模——组织者称，共有超过600支队伍携带2000多台机器人参加。仅在中国就有超过100家类人机器人制造商，此外还有来自其他15个国家的参赛者。
The games featured a mix of contests and competitions, and some saw judges scoring a robot’s performance. Witness the Tiangong Ultra, developed by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, running the 100-meter dash in 8.86 seconds. Another robot called Lightning, from the smartphone maker Honor, ran the distance in 9.47 seconds a few days earlier. 比赛包含了多种竞赛项目，其中一些由裁判对机器人的表现进行评分。例如，由北京人形机器人创新中心开发的“天工”Ultra，以8.86秒的成绩跑完了100米短跑。几天前，来自智能手机制造商荣耀的另一款名为“闪电”的机器人也以9.47秒的成绩完成了比赛。
Both times beat the (human) world record set by Usain Bolt. The Tiangong robot also won the long jump with a sprawl of 7.97 meters. Renaissance robot! Another company’s robot, meanwhile, played Ping Pong against an Olympic champ. 这两个成绩都打破了尤塞恩·博尔特（Usain Bolt）保持的（人类）世界纪录。“天工”机器人还以7.97米的成绩赢得了跳远比赛。真是全能型机器人！与此同时，另一家公司的机器人还与奥运冠军进行了乒乓球对决。
Elsewhere, bots punched each other, scored soccer goals, lifted weights (or tried to), and performed cheerleading routines in silly costumes. Part of the fun stems from the fact that it’s easy to anthropomorphize a humanoid robot’s actions, which tends to make their mishaps particularly funny. Take, for instance, the robot that appeared distracted by a cheerleading display, then tumbled over a balustrade. 在其他赛场上，机器人互相挥拳、踢足球进球、举重（或者尝试举重），还穿着滑稽的服装表演啦啦操。乐趣的一部分源于人们很容易将人形机器人的动作拟人化，这往往让它们的失误显得格外滑稽。比如，有个机器人似乎被啦啦操表演分散了注意力，结果翻过了护栏。
The fact that the robots on show struggled to stop—sometimes blowing out their motors in the process—also shows how the systems are being pushed to their physical limits. 参赛机器人难以停下脚步——有时甚至因此烧毁电机——这一事实也表明，这些系统正被推向其物理极限。
Practical Applications / 实际应用
Humanoids have been around for decades, but the past few years have seen the development of compact, high-power motors capable of keeping robots dynamically balanced at high speeds. “China has had amazing success building robot hardware,” says Stefanie Tellex, a roboticist at Brown University. Unitree, which spun up in the high-tech city of Hangzhou and recently went public, rose to fame by focusing on these innovations. 人形机器人已经存在了几十年，但过去几年里，紧凑型大功率电机的开发使得机器人能够在高速运动中保持动态平衡。布朗大学的机器人专家斯蒂芬妮·特莱克斯（Stefanie Tellex）表示：“中国在制造机器人硬件方面取得了惊人的成功。”在杭州这座高科技城市起步并于近期上市的宇树科技（Unitree），正是凭借专注于这些创新而声名鹊起。
Besides hardware advances, running and jumping robots rely on algorithms trained in simulation to keep them from falling over. This approach most likely explains why some robots have distinctly nonhuman running gaits: An algorithm lands on an optimal strategy by exploring different movements; they may not necessarily match the way humans have evolved to run. 除了硬件进步外，奔跑和跳跃的机器人还依赖于在模拟环境中训练的算法来防止跌倒。这种方法很可能解释了为什么有些机器人的跑步姿态明显非人：算法通过探索不同的动作来找到最优策略，这些策略未必与人类进化出的跑步方式相吻合。
Some of the new events this year would be too simple for human athletes, but they were designed to tax the robots’ brains as much as their brawn. These included plugging cables into sockets and slowly depositing a piece of garbage in a trash can inside a mock bedroom. 今年的一些新项目对人类运动员来说可能太简单了，但它们的设计初衷是考验机器人的“大脑”而非“肌肉”。这些项目包括将电缆插入插座，以及在模拟卧室中缓慢地将垃圾放入垃圾桶。
Tellex explains that training robots to manipulate objects within a more complex environment is far more difficult than having them sprint or leap through the air. Advanced manipulation is something of a holy grail in robotics, and something that some startups in the US are trying to solve using more advanced AI. 特莱克斯解释说，训练机器人在更复杂的环境中操纵物体，远比让它们冲刺或跳跃要困难得多。高级操纵能力是机器人领域的“圣杯”，也是美国一些初创公司正试图利用更先进的AI来解决的问题。
Fiddly finger skills are difficult for robots partly because they involve plenty of hard-to-predict stuff, like friction and slippage. Humans have a finely honed sense of touch, an innate understanding of physics, and the ability to adapt on a microscopic scale at lightning speed. Robots? Not so much. 精细的手指操作对机器人来说很难，部分原因是它们涉及许多难以预测的因素，如摩擦力和打滑。人类拥有敏锐的触觉、对物理学的直觉理解，以及以闪电般速度在微观层面进行适应的能力。而机器人呢？还差得远。
“It’s an example of Moravec’s paradox,” Tellex says. “Where things like backflips that seem more impressive than plugging in a cable are actually easier than plugging in a cable.” “这是莫拉维克悖论（Moravec’s paradox）的一个例子，”特莱克斯说，“像后空翻这样看起来比插电缆更令人印象深刻的事情，实际上比插电缆要容易得多。”
One key caveat with the event: Some images and videos seem to show humans remotely operating some of the robots, suggesting the bots cannot handle them autonomously. Even so, the fact that robot hands are now deft enough to grasp tiny objects using tools, even under human control, is pretty impressive. 此次活动的一个关键注意事项是：一些图片和视频似乎显示有人在远程操控部分机器人，这表明这些机器人还无法完全自主处理任务。即便如此，机器人手部现在已经灵巧到可以使用工具抓取微小物体（即使是在人类控制下），这依然令人印象深刻。
The full schedule for the games listed other events designed to test manual dexterity, including “block building” and “tweezer bean picking.” These tasks seem to reflect China’s eagerness to automate work in factories and warehouses, like wiring through an automobile’s chassis or assembling electronics. 比赛的完整日程表中还列出了其他旨在测试手动灵巧性的项目，包括“积木搭建”和“镊子夹豆”。这些任务似乎反映了中国在工厂和仓库中实现工作自动化的迫切愿望，例如汽车底盘布线或电子产品组装。
A company called Galbot took part in several events, including a Supermarket Scenario Competition, which involves stocking shelves in a retail store. The company sees them as a way to push commercial capabilities forward. “Galbot will continue advancing humanoid robot capabilities by taking on increasingly challenging scenarios,” Yvonne Yuan, a representative for the company, told me in an email. 一家名为Galbot的公司参加了多个项目，包括涉及零售店货架补货的“超市场景竞赛”。该公司将这些比赛视为推动商业能力进步的一种方式。公司代表Yvonne Yuan在电子邮件中告诉我：“Galbot将通过挑战日益复杂的场景，继续提升人形机器人的能力。”