Hyundai Motor Group's humanoid robot "Atlas" has become engrossed in soccer.
Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) said Thursday it has released a making film on its official YouTube channel documenting the development process of "School of Football," a campaign for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. School of Football is a video that captures the process of Atlas learning soccer movements and expanding its robotics technology domain. Starting with basic movements such as passing and shooting, Atlas executes advanced moves including the Rabona kick, in which the leg crosses over to strike the ball.
The making film conveys the research process and the behind-the-scenes development stories of the research team that led to Atlas performing such soccer feats. Hyundai Motor and Boston Dynamics collected the biomechanics and movement patterns of world-class soccer players using a motion capture system, then performed retargeting to convert the data to fit Atlas's body structure.
Afterward, using reinforcement learning, the team had Atlas repeatedly learn soccer movements while optimizing balance and force transfer on its own. To this end, thousands of simulations ran simultaneously in a cloud graphics processing unit (GPU) environment, and Atlas experienced about a year's worth of trial and error by human standards in just 24 hours.
The Boston Dynamics research team had Atlas learn soccer because they judged that nothing matches soccer, a vigorous full-body exercise, for simultaneously acquiring visual perception, balance, timing, coordination, and adaptability. The team particularly stressed that "the movements Atlas learned through soccer do not stop at simple sports skills but play an important role in advancing robotics technology." Environments that require simultaneous movement and manipulation, like soccer, can be directly extended to a robot's ability to handle and move objects on logistics and manufacturing sites, they said.
Having honed its soccer skills, Atlas recently demonstrated outstanding full-body control by lifting a refrigerator weighing about 23 kilograms and placing it precisely on a table. "The capabilities learned through soccer are expected to become an important foundation for developing humanoid robots that move more naturally and flexibly in the future," a Hyundai Motor official said. "We plan to continuously advance Atlas's abilities through various challenges going forward."
