The winner of a robot half-marathon held in Beijing on Sunday smashed the human world record by more than six minutes in the latest display of the industry’s rapid development.
The humanoid device, known as Lightning, was developed by the Chinese smartphone and gadget company Honor, which only entered the sector last year.
Its finishing time of 50 minutes 26 seconds was far quicker than the men’s world record of 57:20 held by the Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo and around 17 minutes faster than the quickest human in Sunday’s race, a local amateur runner.
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Under the rules of the competition, different teams can enter the same model using different hardware and algorithms to control the robot. This year, the top three were all Lightning models operated by different teams.
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The winning robot was 169cm (5.5ft) high, weighed around 45kg (99lbs) and was designed to adapt to complex terrains while moving at high speeds.
Winner of second Beijing robot half-marathon smashes human world record by 6 minutes
