Meet the football playing robot that’s ‘better than Messi’
>
Meet the soccer-playing robot that’s ‘better than Messi’: watch the full-sized bot sprint, jump and walk just like a real human
- The robot called Artemis will participate in this year’s RoboCup in France
- Artemis is designed to move as if ‘she’ has biological muscles
- Researchers joke that the name stands for ‘A Robot That Exceeds Messi In Soccer’
A soccer-playing robot will compete in an international tournament later this year – and experts say ‘she’ is better than Lionel Messi.
The 4ft 8in humanoid, named Artemis, can walk and jump, and is one of only three robots in the world that can run.
Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) refer to Artemis as an anagram for “A Robot That Exceeds Messi In Soccer.”
Dennis Hong, director of the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory said: ‘We are very excited to be taking Artemis for field testing here at UCLA and we see this as an opportunity to promote science, technology, engineering and math to a much wider audience. ‘
The human-sized robot will showcase its soccer skills as a contender at France’s RoboCup23 in July.
A soccer-playing robot will compete in an international tournament later this year, as pundits joke that ‘she’ is better than Lionel Messi
The experts clocked Artemis at a record speed of 2.1 m/s during tests and have since taken it on walks around the university campus as part of its preparation.
RoboCup23 will bring together 2,500 participants from 45 countries to compete in a number of football-related challenges.
Robots of all different sizes can participate in the various competitions, with a ‘small’ competition designed for bots five centimeters tall and a humanoid competition for humans as tall as children, teens and adults.
The inventor of the cup, Hiroaki Kitano, proposed nearly 30 years ago that robots could play with humans on the field by 2050.
Artemis’ soccer abilities will be tested more vigorously in the coming weeks, alongside his ability to get up off the ground and carry objects.
Dr. Hong claims the 85Ibs robot is a “first of its kind” and uses technology to make it act like it has “resilient” biological muscles instead of rigid parts like other robots.
The experts clocked Artemis at a record speed of 2.1 m/s during tests and have taken him on walks around the university campus ever since
Artemis’ football abilities will be tested more vigorously in the coming weeks, alongside his ability to get up off the ground and carry objects
Artemis follows a number of other UCLA-developed robots, including Saffir for firefighting, created in 2014, and Thor designed for disaster relief. Five-foot-tall Thor triumphed at RoboCup in 2015, also against over 400 teams
Robots of different sizes can participate in the different competitions of the RoboCup (photo 2015)
“That’s the key behind his excellent balance when walking on uneven terrain and his ability to run – getting both feet off the ground while moving,” he added.
Artemis follows a number of other UCLA-developed robots, including Saffir for firefighting, created in 2014, and Thor designed for disaster relief.
The five-foot-tall Thor triumphed at the 2015 RoboCup, also against over 400 teams.
The researchers’ current robot was funded in part by 232 donors who contributed $118,000 to a crowdfunding campaign, while other support also came from a Naval Research grant.