Only 14 years ago it was an idea to shoot a great Hollywood production, as was the film Real Steelbut today is a reality. On May 26, the first martial arts tournament between humanoid robots took place in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. It is difficult to specify what kind of fight it was exactly, since there was space for both punches and kicks between the 4 robots of the manufacturer unitree robotics that participated. CCTV state television, which broadcast the event, spoke so much of martial arts like boxingwhile other Chinese media have talked about Kickboxingbut this is secondary. The important thing is that We already have humanoid robots giving themselves cakes for human entertainment. And what will come in the future.
The World Robot Competition Mecha Fighting Series presented the four robots, controlled by humans, who competed in three two -minute assaults. The winners were determined by a point system, according to the Chinese state medium Global Times.
Chen Xiyun, a member of the Unitree team, said ‘Robots collaboratively fight between humans and machines’with pretended movements, but ultimately controlled by a person. This remote control is carried out through a joystick and also with voice commands.
UNITREE G1 Robots They measure 132 cm high and weigh about 35 kilograms each. Before the fighting, they exhibited their abilities with different blows and kicks without losing their balance.
This was the fight between the 4 Unitree robots
The rules of the fighting were that a blow to the head was worth 1 point and a kick 3. If the robot fell, the team lost 5 points, and 10 if more than eight seconds remained on the ground.
In one of the first fighting, a robot identified with pink color, in the protective helmet and gloves, fought against another. After a series of blows and kicks somewhat inaccurate, the black robot first fell to the ground when kicking. However, He recovered and demolished that of Rosa in the third assault with a front kick. A second fall ended with the black robot on the pink, immobilizing it to ensure victory.
Pink and red robots were eliminated, being the black and green for the final. Finally, The black robot, controlled by the Chinese influencer Lu XinHe was declared a champion after overcoming his opponent in score.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_szceu6apwg
Wang qixinUnitree, he explained to CCTV that the company employed ‘Artificial intelligence technology for robots to learn. First, we use movement capture based on professional combat athletes. From that data, the robot learns the movements in a virtual environment ‘.
The Unitree G1 who participated in the tournament are scheduled 8 basic combat patterns and multiple combined movements that include straight punches, hooks, kicks, etc.but the most surprising is its ability to recover balance. Even when one of them fell out of ring and With tangled legs between the strings that delimit them, he was able to recover the vertical position almost immediately.
The rapid progress of Unitree Robotics with humanoid robots
For the probable envy of Tesla and his humanoid OptimusUnitree has shown great advances with his own within a few months.
‘Six months ago, people could not imagine that humanoid robots would be able to perform all these movements without problems. The combat struggle is a difficult task for humanoid robots due to intense confrontation during the fight. Robots need to take care of their movements and react to the movements of their opponent. All these requirements significantly challenges algorithms, electronic parts and the speed reducers of robots’, explained Li gaofengResearcher at the Faculty of Control Sciences and Engineering at the University of Zhejiang, to the National Business Daily.
Just four months ago, Unitree H1 humanoid robots surprised dancing with the audience at the CCTV 2025 spring festival gala January 28. In March, Unitree G1 robots could be seen Giving lateral and kicking squeaks In a video, a significant improvement with respect to the somersault back of the H1 shown a year ago. In April, Unitree published images that showed A kickboxing fight between G1 and a male boxer and another between two G1 robots. It should be noted that in the first one, the human defeated the robot without difficulty. Something worse was the protagonists of another recent video in which an H1 robot, 1.8 meters high, is seen, losing control and violently stirring his arms for a few seconds.
This is the humanoid robot Unitree G1
Unitree G1 is a humanoid robot presented in May 2024 by Unitree Robotics. It is designed for research, educational and industrial tasksand stands out for its combination of advanced capabilities with a competitive price that starts from the 14,000 euros. Its main characteristics are:
- Dimensions and weight: 1.32 meters and weight approximately 35 kg.
- Mobility: Maximum speed of 2 m/s (7.2 km/h) and ability to perform complex movements such as walking, running, jumping and climbing stairs.
- Joints: It has between 23 and 43 degrees of freedom (the amount of independent movements that you can perform through its joints or engines) depending on the configuration, allowing a wide range of movements.
- Hands: Optionally, it can be equipped with the hands of three fingers controlled by force, capable of manipulating precision objects.
- Sensors: Incorporates a 3D LIVOX MID360 and an Intel Realsense D435 depth chamber for the perception of the environment.
- Prosecution: Equipped with a high performance CPU of 8 cores.
- Autonomy: 9,000 mAh battery that provides approximately 2 hours of continuous operation.
- Learning: Use learning and reinforcement learning, supported by the Unifolm model (Unitree Robot Unified Large Model), to improve their abilities through OTA updates.