The shape of the robot is growing
Sports competitions of robots are known and have been held for many years. In the past, these were niche, educational and research games for polytechnic teams. Today they are often reported by the major media. Drones are racing as exciting as Formula 1, and artificial intelligence is starting to win in esports.
Man does not disappear from the disciplines that we have traditionally been passionate about. It cannot be said that, as in the case of some competitions, athletes today are completely threatened by machines - maybe, in addition to chess, the game of Go or other intellectual disciplines in which computers and neural networks have already defeated the greatest masters and questioned the leading role of homo sapiens . Robot sports, however, are essentially a separate stream of competition, sometimes mimicking the disciplines we know, and sometimes focusing on completely original fights in which machines can show their specific strengths and compete with human sports for attention and interest. public. As it turned out lately, they are starting to get better and better.
Drone League
An example can be extremely exciting flying drone racing (1). This is a fairly new sport. He is no more than five years old. Recently, he began to professionalize, which, of course, does not block the path to fun and adrenaline for everyone.
The roots of this discipline can be found in Australia, where in 2014 Rotorcross. The pilots remotely controlled the racing quadcopters by wearing goggles connected to the cameras on the drones. The following year, California hosted the first international drone race. One hundred pilots competed in three events - individual races, group races and performances, ie. acrobatic performances on difficult routes. The Australian was the winner in all three categories Chad Novak.
The pace of development of this sport is impressive. In March 2016, the World Drone Prix took place in Dubai. The main prize was 250 thousand. dollars, or more than a million zlotys. The entire prize pool exceeded $1 million, with a XNUMX-year-old boy from the UK winning the biggest prize. Currently, the largest drone racing organization is the International Drone Racing Association based in Los Angeles. This year, IDRA will hold the first world championship in racing these machines, i.e. Drone World Championship - Drone World Championship.
One of the most famous drone racing leagues is the international Drone Champions League (DCL), one of the sponsors of which is Red Bull. In the US, where the potential for the development of this discipline is greatest, there is the Drone Racing League (DRL), which recently received a large injection of money. ESPN sports television has been broadcasting flying drone races since last year.
On the mat and on the slope
The competition of robots in numerous competitions, such as the famous DARPA Robotics Challenge held a few years ago, is partly sporting, although primarily research. It has a similar character known from many forms rover competition, recently developed primarily for Mars exploration.
These "sport competitions" are not sports in and of themselves, because at the end of the day, each participant recognizes that it is about building a better structure (see ""), and not just about a trophy. However, for real athletes, such skirmishes are few. They want more adrenaline. An example is the MegaBots company from Boston, which first created an impressive mechanical monster called Mark 2, and then challenged the creators of a Japanese mega-robot on wheels called Curate, i.e. Suidobashi Heavy Industries. The Mark 2 is a six-ton tracked monster armed with powerful paint cannons and driven by a crew of two. The Japanese design is slightly lighter, weighing 4,5 tons, but also has weapons and an improved guidance system.
The so-called duel. mechów turned out to be much less emotional and dynamic than the noisy announcements. Certainly not the way it's been known for a long time fight and others martial arts smaller robots. The classic robot fights in the category are extremely spectacular. mini-, micro- i nanosumo. It is at these competitions that robots meet each other in the dohyo ring. The entire battlefield has a diameter of 28 to 144 cm, depending on the weight of the vehicles.
Autonomous electric car racing is fun too Roboras. With a new robotic formula in mind, not necessarily electric, Yamaha created motorcycle boot (2) is a humanoid robot capable of driving a motorcycle autonomously, i.e. without assistance while driving. The robot motorcycle was introduced a few years ago during the Tokyo Motor Show. The robotic racer drove the demanding Yamaha R1M. According to the company, the system was tested at high speeds, which placed high demands on motion control.
Robots play too put ping (3) or in football. Another edition began in July 2019 in Australia. RoboCup 2019, the world's largest annual football tournament. Initiated in 1997 and run on a rolling basis, the competition is designed to help develop robotics and artificial intelligence to the point where it can beat humans. The goal of the struggle and development of football techniques is to build a machine by 2050 that can beat the best players. Football matches at the Sydney International Conference Center have been played in several sizes. Cars are divided into three categories: adults, teens and children.
3. Omron robot plays ping pong
Robots also boldly entered for goods. As the best athletes in the world competed at the Winter Olympics in South Korea, the Welli Hilli Ski Resort in Hyeonseong hosted the competition. Ski Robot Challenge. Skibots used in them (4) stand on your two legs, bend your knees and elbows, use skis and poles in the same way as skiers. Through machine learning, the sensors allow the robots to detect slalom poles along the route.
Artificial intelligence will conquer eSports?
Engaging in drones or robots is one thing. Another increasingly noticeable phenomenon is the expansion of artificial intelligence, which brings not only such results as beating the grandmasters of the Far Eastern game of Go (5) with the AlphaGo system developed by DeepMind, but also other interesting consequences.
As it turns out, only AI can invent new games and sports. Design agency AKQA recently proposed "Speedgate", which has been hailed as the first sport to have rules designed by artificial intelligence. The game combines the features of many famous field games. Its participants are people who supposedly like it very much.
5. AlphaGo Gameplay with Go Grandmaster
Recently, the world has become interested in artificial intelligence cybersportwhich itself is a relatively new creation. Game masters have decided that machine learning algorithms are great for "learning" and polishing strategies in electronic games. They are used for this analytical platformssuch as SenpAI, which can evaluate player statistics and suggest the best strategies for games like League of Legends and Dota 2. The AI Trainer advises team members on how to attack and defend, and shows how alternative approaches can increase (or decrease) the chances of winning.
The already mentioned company DeepMind used machine learning find better ways to work with old PC games like "Pong" for Atari. As she confessed two years ago Raya Hadsell With DeepMind, computer games are a great test bed for AI because the competitive results achieved by algorithms are objective, not subjective. Designers can see from level to level how much progress their AI is making in science.
By learning in this way, the AI begins to beat the champions of eSports. The system, developed by OpenAI, defeated reigning World Champions (Human) Team OG 2-0 in an online Dota 2 game in April this year. He is still losing. However, as it turned out, he learns quickly, much faster than a person. In a blog post from the company, OpenAI said the software had been trained for about ten months. 45 thousand years human game.
Will e-sports, which has developed so brilliantly in recent years, now be dominated by algorithms? And will people still be interested in him when non-humans play? The popularity of various varieties of "auto chess" or games such as "Screeps", in which the role of the human is largely reduced to that of the programmer and the configuration of the objects involved in the game, indicates that we tend to get excited about the competition of the machines themselves. However, it should always seem that the “human factor” should be at the forefront. And let's stick with it.
This is an Airspeeder | World's first premium eVTOL racing league
Autonomous flying taxi racing
AI-invented game "Speedgate"
