3 October 2016

RISE OF THE ROBOMASTERS


By Ben Popper


The lights dimmed inside the Shenzhen Bay Sports Stadium as the countdown to the match began. "Wu, si, san, er, yi!" A chime sounded and two teams of robots sprang into action across an intricately constructed battlefield. In the stands, thousands of fans cheered, and groups of small children beat red and blue balloons together, producing a percussive roar.

Each team had four rovers, nimble infantry units that quickly spread over the terrain. The rovers were shaped like small cars, but could also slide side to side, strafing like water bugs over the surface of a lake. They fired small plastic marbles from cannons mounted on top of their frames. Lumbering alongside the nimble rovers was each team’s hero, a larger tank-like robot that could fire the small plastic marbles as well as more powerful golf balls.

The heavy favorite in this matchup of RoboMasters, an annual competition held each summer, was team 1.5S, returning champions hailing from China’s University of Electronic Science and Technology in the Sichuan province. They were taking on StarPro, from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan.

THE ROBOMASTERS BATTLEFIELD MAY FEEL FAMILIAR TO ANYONE WHO’S PLAYED A MOBA LIKE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS OR DOTA

The RoboMasters battlefield and rules of play may feel familiar to anyone who’s played a MOBA like League of Legends or Dota: two teams working to destroy the opposing base, collecting power-ups that boost their attack, health, and defense, and leveraging the unique abilities of their robots to devise different strategies. DJI outfitted each robot and base with pressure-sensitive plates that detect impacts and differentiate between plastic marbles and golf balls. A successful strike drains life points, and if a robot’s health reaches zero, it is shut off. Power-ups can be collected by driving over certain areas of the map or completing technical challenges, like a computer vision challenge, where teams had to autonomously track and strike a rapidly moving target. The team with the most health left at the end of seven minutes is declared the winner, and either side can score a sudden victory by destroying the enemy base.

As the robots exchanged light fire in the first of three matches, the 1.5S hero approached an island in the center of the course surrounded by spikes. With a pneumatic hiss, its legs extended, elevating the robot’s body over the obstacles. It was defenseless during this climb, and enemy bullets rained down, draining half its health. Ignoring the attack, the hero surmounted the island. The crowd thundered in approval.

Its reward was a massive tub of golf balls. The hero lowered a crane-like arm into the tub and, with a great whirring, clattering sound, began sucking golf balls into its belly. StarPro had a different approach. The team used a drone to scoop up golf balls from a raised pedestal, then airdropped them into its hero that was waiting below. Meanwhile 1.5S used its aerial unit as a scout, surveying the battlefield from above.

The two teams clashed in the middle of the arena, then continued past each other, each heading for the opposing base. The goal now was simple: eliminate the enemy base. StarPro had more rovers left alive, and normally would have held an advantage. But 1.5S had another trick up its sleeve. It set up a rover in front of a bank of TV screens, their images changing rapidly. Its rover initiated a subroutine powered by a computer vision algorithm, effortlessly tracking the pattern and hitting the correct TV without human help.

Each team was now stationed at the enemy base, opening fire. But 1.5S was now doing 50 percent more damage per shot, a bonus granted for completing the TV test. With its golf ball bullets and supercharged attack, they made quick work of StarPro’s base. When its fortress fell, StarPro’s troops automatically deactivated, their lights dimmed, their cannons falling to their side.

DJI IS BATTLING TO WIN TOP TALENT

For the teams of students involved in this year’s RoboMasters tournament, the stakes were clear: 350,000 RMB (roughly $53,000) in prize money, more than four times the average salary of a Chinese worker. Winners achieve celebrity status among the 6 million fans who watch the action stream live online, as well as a shot at landing a job at at DJI, the Chinese drone maker that created this competition. Over the last two years the company has hired around 40 engineers out of the tournament.

For DJI, the stakes are reversed. It is battling to win top talent in some of technology’s hottest fields: computer vision and autonomous navigation. Over the last three years, the company has emerged from obscurity to become the market leader in the booming consumer drone market, setting the pace for innovation in the category. "I can’t think of a consumer electronics brand that was there at the beginning, or in many ways helped create and shape the category, that was Chinese," says Ben Bajarin, an industry analyst. DJI wants to build not just drones, but all kinds of intelligent machines that can understand and interact with the world around them, and RoboMasters is their proving ground.

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