The "fastest" humanoid robot in the world is preparing for a football tournament

UCLA has released a new video showing the latest version of the ARTEMIS robot project that will compete in the RoboCup football league.

A new sense of enthusiasm has surrounded the robotics industry since Tesla entered the market with the Optimus robot, especially when combined with Elon Musk's fervent support for the technology and its potential use in manufacturing. Now one of the most promising robotics projects in the United States from UCLA has been showcased on video in its latest iteration.

This morning, a video about the new capabilities of the ARTEMIS robot was posted on the YouTube channel of the UCLA Robotics and Mechanism Laboratory (RoMeLa).

Just like Boston Dynamics' ever-popular robot training videos, UCLA is putting ARTEMIS to incredibly tough tests. The robot is forced to walk long distances without support, walk on uneven surfaces, get kicked and punched while remaining upright, and much more.

While the video shows some of the new robot's incredible feats, perhaps more impressive are the announcements made by the ARTEMIS engineers about their latest project.

The robot's engineers claim it is the fastest humanoid robot on the planet, moving at 2.1 meters per second, can run "with a flight phase, both feet off the ground", and is the third humanoid robot ever made. it, and works completely untethered thanks to the built-in battery and computing system.

The list of technical improvements made to the platform to enable this incredible amount of movement is just as extensive, including a new "proprioceptive actuator" system for moving the robot, "unconventional hip orientation for better distribution of torque between the yaw and roll actuators." "optimized inertia for dynamic locomotion" and "a new type of front and rear single-axis foot force sensor."

The RoboCup, for which ARTEMIS was designed to participate, is a serious competition in which robots oppose robots in football matches, which resulted in UCLA engineers rephrasing the acronym ARTEMIS as "The robot that beats Messi in football." The competition has many sub-sections, including "standard platform", "small size" and "humanoid" in which ARTEMIS will compete.

This is far from the first robot created by RoMeLa, and not the first to participate in the RoboCup football tournament. However, compared to previous robots such as THOR, SAFFiR and CHARLI, ARTEMIS has much greater mobility and is much more compact.

As robots become more important in industrial applications, there is no doubt that more and more companies will join companies like Tesla in investing in robotics. And with videos like this, that future might be just around the corner.