(Yicai) Jan. 23 -- Chinese startup Unitree Robotics, whose action-packed video of an agile robot dog went viral at the end of last year, has brought out its first soccer-playing humanoid robot with the aim of creating star players for global robotic football competitions.

Unitree describes G1-Comp as a ‘Football Icon Designed for Competitions’ on its website, where it can be seen kicking a ball, running, changing direction, and standing back up after falling.

The G1-Comp's specifications are largely identical to Unitree’s G1 prototype. It stands about 1.3 meters tall, weighs about 35 kilograms, can move at speeds of up to two meters per second, and has a battery life of as much as two hours. This model also has optimized head movement capabilities and upgraded camera configurations to improve visual coverage.

Although Hangzhou-based Unitree has not yet announced the G1-Comp’s participation in any robot soccer competitions, it comes with development guidelines specifically for RoboCup, a prestigious annual tournament held each year since 1997.

The guidelines enable users to enhance the robot's visual recognition, spatial positioning, and motion control via an application programming interface to improve its performance on the pitch.

RoboCup is a platform for advancing robotics and artificial intelligence research, with the long-term ambition of creating a team of robots that can compete against and defeat the most recent FIFA World Cup champions by the middle of this century.

Robots developed by Chinese firms have already taken part in the RoboCup. The 27th edition of the event held in Eindhoven last July featured two teams from China with soccer-playing androids from Shanghai-based Fourier and Beijing-based Booster Robotics. 

Established in 2016, Unitree has advanced to mass production of robot dogs and androids. It released a demo video of its latest upgraded robot dog, the B2-W, on YouTube last month, attracting the attention of many industry professionals, including Elon Musk.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev