Robot football matches show robotics has long way to go
Technology
humans could play against robots in specially arranged matches
(Web Desk) - China's first three-on-three robot football tournament kicked off in Beijing.
But the quality of play on show suggests that a robot won't be claiming the Ballon d'Or any time soon.
As the AI-controlled bots shuffled slowly across the turf, they bumped into each other, toppled over, and only occasionally even kicked the ball.
By the time the final whistle blew, two bots had to be stretchered off the pitch after taking falls that would earn most human players a yellow card for diving.
Cheng Hao, founder of Booster Robotics, which supplied the robots for the tournament, told the Global Times that the robots currently have the skills of five-to six-year-old children.
However, Mr Hao believes that the robots' abilities will grow 'exponentially' and will soon be 'surpassing youth-level teams and eventually challenging adult teams'.
In the future, Mr Hao even says that humans could play against robots in specially arranged matches.
However, with the robots currently struggling to avoid collisions, more will need to be done to make the bots safe for humans to play with.
The match took place as part of the ROBO league football tournament in Beijing, a test game ahead of China's upcoming 2025 World Humanoid Games.
Four teams of engineers were each provided with robots and tasked with building the AI strategies which control everything from passing and shooting to getting up after a fall.
Ultimately, THU Robotics from Tsinghua University defeated the Mountain Sea from China Agricultural University team five goals to three to win the championship.
However, despite impressive advancements in robotics, the matches showed that robotics still has a long way to go.
The robots struggle with what engineers call 'dynamic obstacle avoidance', which means they tend to run into other moving players despite moving only one metre per second.
This was such an issue that the tournament's organisers had to use a specially made version of football's rules which allows more 'non-malicious collisions'.
Likewise, although the robots were sometimes able to stand back up, human assistants sometimes had to step in and set them back on their feet.
At one point in the match, the referee even had to hold back two robots as they blindly trampled a fallen teammate.
