At the half-marathon race for humanoid robots in Beijing, the team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) won the prize for best international team. The robot, entered into the race by TUM Professor Gordon Cheng, completed the 21-kilometre course in 3 hours and 35 minutes. This made it the best team from outside China, finishing in 39th place overall. Around half of the 124 participants had to withdraw.
TUM Running fast, but without overheating the motors or wasting too much energy: that was the balance the three-person research team led by Prof. Gordon Cheng had to strike at the 2026 Beijing Half Marathon. Even during the test runs in the nights leading up to the competition, it became clear that a speed of two metres per second (7.2 km/h) would be best to avoid overworking the robust robot from China whilst still reaching the finish line safely. Unlike the eventual winner 'Blitz' and many more high-performance humanoid robots, for example, the robot of TUM is not cooled with water, but solely by the air flowing past it. "How to dissipate the heat - that is the key issue," remarks TUM researcher Simon Armleder, who sees an advantage here in the custom-built Blitz.
The TUM team adapted the code on-site
Unlike several other university teams that opted for the Tienkung Ultra hardware platform from the X-Humanoid Innovation Centre, the Munich team did not rely on the pre-installed software. "In our laboratory, we have been working with the REEM-C humanoid robot from PAL Robotics for years and therefore have a great deal of experience with humanoid systems," explains Armleder. "For the race, we set up our own simulation and trained the movement sequences using reinforcement learning to optimally adapt our control system to the new platform."
TUM During the race, the TUM researchers drove a golf cart directly behind the robot and controlled it via remote control. A mobile phone display continuously showed the battery charge level, motor temperature, and speed. The team changed the batteries three times during the race. "At our speed, they would have lasted for about ten kilometres, but we played it safe," said Armleder. An unscheduled stop on the track, for example, due to an early battery change, would have resulted in a penalty. Overall, the Munich team came 39th; around half of the 124 participants had to withdraw.
Just two weeks' preparation time
Prof. Gordon Cheng, who the Chinese Institute of Electronics has invited, is very pleased with his first appearance at the Beijing Half Marathon: "It wasn't until two weeks before the race that we knew for certain we'd be competing there. And we had just eight days to adapt our software model to the robot. It's brilliant that we managed to pull it off. With more preparation time, we can certainly do even better."
