Humanoid robots have shown remarkable ability in recent months, accomplishing tasks like cracking almonds, folding laundry, and organizing workspaces. And now, we can add “conquering a world monument” to this list of feats, as demonstrated by a new video by China-based Robot Era.
According to the company, the humanoid robot shown in the video, XBot-L, is the first to scale the Great Wall of China successfully. Even though XBot-L can’t move as quickly as Unitree’s H1 humanoid or as easily as Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot, it can nevertheless go along the wall. It can climb steps easily, and when it gets to a guard tower on the wall, it even does a few tai chi techniques. Robot Era claims that XBot-L’s unique reinforcement learning (RL) technology allows it to easily navigate both the rugged Great Wall and the poorly lighted guard towers.
“Perceptive RL algorithms help to strengthen the robot’s perceptive and decision-making capacity in the face of unfamiliar terrains,” said Yue Xi, co-founder of Robot Era, in a statement. “The robot thus can recognize complex road conditions and adjust its walking stance in a timely manner.”
Despite the robot’s incredible navigational and balancing systems, the video also reveals duct tape around its midsection. This may have been a humorous nod to the waist bags worn by many tourists or a practical fix for a technical issue. Regardless, it highlights that even the most sophisticated robots sometimes require simple DIY solutions to operate effectively outside controlled environments.
Although this achievement might not revolutionize humanoid robotics, Robot Era – incubated by the Institute of Cross-disciplinary Information Sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing – deserves credit for this clever promotional effort. By showcasing a humanoid robot conquering one of the world’s most iconic monuments, they create a novel spectacle and help normalize the presence of robots in everyday settings.
With the increasing integration of humanoid robots into everyday life, one can wonder if tourist destinations would change their entry policies. Will Disney hold a “bring your humanoid to the park for free” day, or will robots that can easily climb the Eiffel Tower be admitted free of charge?
we do not know what will eventually shape the future, but these thoughts make us think more deeply about how humans and robots will interact in the future.
Source: Robot Era
