As natural as walking is to us tail-less bipedal mammals, the fact of the matter is that it took many evolutionary adaptations to make this act of controlled falling forward work (somewhat) reliably. It’s therefore little wonder that replicating bipedal walking (and running) in robotics is taking a while. Recently a Chinese humanoid robot managed to bump up the maximum running speed to 3.6 m/s (12.96 km/h), during a match between two of Robot Era’s STAR1 humanoid robots in the Gobi desert.

For comparison, the footspeed of humans during a marathon is around 20 km/h and significantly higher with a sprint. These humanoid robots did a 34 minute run, with an interesting difference being that one was equipped with running shoes, which helped it reach these faster speeds. Clearly the same reasons which has led humans to start adopting footwear since humankind’s hunter-gatherer days – including increased grip and traction – also apply to humanoid robots.

That said, it looks like the era when humans can no longer outrun humanoid robots is still a long time off.