Atlas, the humanoid robot, delivers match ball at World Cup

EAST RUTHERFORD: The World Cup has seen superstars, pitch invaders, heartbreak and joy across its 96 years — and, on Sunday, it got a robot.

Atlas, an advanced humanoid robot, stepped pitchside to deliver the match ball to the referee at halftime at New York New Jersey Stadium, where Brazil were playing Norway in the round of 16. Its moves include imitating a few uncanny goal celebrations — including Norwegian striker Erling Haaland’s meditation pose.

“We always looked at human skill as a way to like motivate us and challenge us to push forward what robots can do,” said Alberto Rodriguez, director of robot behaviour at Boston Dynamics.

The robot, presented by tournament sponsor Hyundai Motor, has previously danced and engaged in parkour.

But to deliver the match ball — and pull off a few sweet moves — Atlas had to navigate challenges unique to the World Cup.

Standard Wi-Fi communications with Atlas were out of the question, with tens of thousands of fans surrounding the pitch with cell phones, so a new communications channel was established with a radio device attached to the robot’s back.

“And grass has its own peculiarity,” said Rodriguez. “We had to change the way that Atlas learns to walk and learns to jump and run so that it’s more robust.”

Hyundai has been aggressively pursuing mass production of the robots, announcing this year that it plans to deploy them at its US manufacturing plant in Georgia starting in 2028, in an effort to automate high-risk and repetitive tasks.