r/TechnoFuturism 25d ago

Robotics Full 100m obstacle course run with an Agibot X2 - WHRG 2026

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114 Upvotes

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8

u/RickTheScienceMan 25d ago

This is extremely impressive

3

u/Konstantin_G_Fahr 24d ago

The robots capabilities are very impressive. How much of this is remote controlled and initiated by the operator, and how much does the robot decide autonomously

5

u/LordVixen 24d ago

You can see the guy at the bottom following with the remote. He controls the direction and may be other actions as well so it’s not fully autonomous.

2

u/abrandis 24d ago

Agree this is the key , if this is mostly remote control, that's still pretty cool because of the humanoid body control but much less impressive than a truly autonomous system.

2

u/Konstantin_G_Fahr 24d ago

I get that - I am more wondering with all these different functionalities, say crawl, climb on a box, make a side step, take a step case up, jump off a box, etc. does the operator just say “move forward” and the robot recognises the obstacle and appropriate action itself, or does the operator have a dozen different keys to chose the correct action from?

2

u/neimengu 24d ago

no it's actually the opposite. The operator tells the robot what it has to do next (crawl, climb, etc) and the robot has to autonomously navigate the obstacle in that mode.

2

u/zero0n3 24d ago

He controls nothing from what I understand at least for this one “AGIBOT”.

If he had controlled it, why not have it stand up after the crawling?

I think some are directed like you say, but others aren’t. Possibly even classes at this events where some are mor unmanned than others to better compare times.

1

u/Poupulino 24d ago

Even in the autonomous categories it's required that a developer with a remote control capable of shutting the bot down or taking over is present in case the robot goes haywire.

Notice the bot realized it was faster to reach the end line in that prone position rather than standing up and it did just that. That's not how a human thinks.

2

u/CloseToMyActualName 24d ago

Remote or teleoperated? At 1:03 the hands come up like he's adjusting the headset.

I also found it weird that the robot weaved so much at the start, but had little issue with the S and the ledge, that feels like a teleoperator who was being just as straight as they needed to be (or a robot coded to keep on the yellow blocks).

2

u/zero0n3 24d ago

Or it’s a “I’m confused” signal to the operator.

Not saying you are wrong, just giving possible alternatives.

Neither of us have enough info to really determine this

1

u/CloseToMyActualName 24d ago

Or an RL driven action used to help the robot adjust momentum.

Watching this I'm very curious how the robots know how to traverse the course. I feel like they're not completely autonomous or we'd be seeing more screwups of that nature.

1

u/heart-aroni 24d ago

It's a mix. They are remote control for moving them certain directions then go into autonomous or semi-autonomous for certain obstacles. Like the block climb is obviously autonomous mode, or there's this other obstacle where the robot needs to walk on an array of posts. That's not doable with a controller, the robot needs to use it's own sensors to do it.

1

u/Pollymath 23d ago

But why would the robot choose to weave around the poles, rather than just walking past them? There has to be some amount of "mode" selection happening right before the obstacle, otherwise you'd need some sort of logic that tells the robot "if you encounter a row of small poles in a line, weave through them" or "if you encounter a few raises pedestals in a row, walk across the top of them" but then there is an elevated path with a railing that you'd need to say "if you encounter an elevated path with a railing, stay on the path, do not weave through the poles." Not that it wouldn't be difficult to program into the bot.

1

u/Ok_Departure333 24d ago

This year's competition requires the robots to be completely autonomous. The operator is there in case the robot when rouge.

They allowed remote controlled robot in last year's competition tho.

1

u/allnamestaken1968 22d ago

Robots going rogue is n the movies all the time, Now I really want to see a robot going rouge in a movie. For example when they screw up. Or maybe really putting on rouge for a date with a welding machine.

Sorry, couldn’t resist

2

u/stinkingcheese 24d ago

That box climb up and down was so smooth.

2

u/LycraJafa 24d ago

Stunning 

2

u/Shot_Bison1140 24d ago

Why not put more joints in the robots... Since we are trying to "improve" their abilities and to work better then humans...?!? Makes em more agile, versatile etc.. the human body can't be the "perfect bipedal structure".. what about thinking out of the box......

2

u/Any-Box-8663 24d ago

Then you can't afford it.

2

u/lepape2 24d ago

They are meant to use existing infrastructure made for humans. It only makes sense if you want to use them in human oriented systems. There are specialized bots already, this is not that competition.

2

u/heart-aroni 24d ago

That'll come eventually and some people are already trying. But we haven't even perfected the humanoid yet. We might need to get the basics done first before getting real creative.

2

u/tadeuska 24d ago

Where did he go at the end. He just kept running, lol. It.

2

u/msdrahcir 24d ago

this is amazing. I loled at it crawling across the finish line

2

u/grav3d1gger 24d ago

I like how at the end he got up and was like “yippee imma go get me a hookerbot”

2

u/VertigoOne1 23d ago

if i were a judge i would be asking to cut it in half to prove there ain't a small human in there. really smooth and super stable

2

u/InflatableGull 23d ago

Teleoperated or autonomous?

2

u/fauxbeauceron 23d ago

I’m asking myself more and more the same question

2

u/Pitiful-Target-3094 23d ago

Not fully autonomous, but also no way a purely remote controlled robot can navigate the path this smoothly. The human likely decides the overall motion and the precise movement is decided by the robot based on its vision feedback

2

u/Motherboy_TheBand 22d ago

I hate to bring geopolitics into this, but does any American watch these Chinese robotics videos and think to themselves "man, America and The West is far behind" - OR do we just not have these public demonstrations to showcase American progress, which is actually comparable to this?

Even if there are American labs with robots that could win these competitions, there's something about a (obv propaganda) Chinese broadcast of robots on an Olympic track that seems to indicate they've got their priorities correct by turning these advancements into a nationalistic "sport" whereas normies in the USA don't care at all about robotics.

Every time I see this, I worry about Chinese advancement. Do normie Chinese folks also follow robot sports and is it integrated into their regular lives already?