Four-legged robot plays badminton with humans

A team of experts at ETH Zurich has demonstrated an AI-powered four-legged robot that can autonomously play badminton against human opponents.

Badminton is a sport similar to tennis, the main difference being the use of shuttlecocks instead of tennis balls. The objective is the same: to hit the shuttlecock over a net placed in the middle of the court to the waiting opponent. Photo: @Badminton HQ.

Playing badminton requires skillful footwork to quickly get into the desired position, and dexterity of the arms and hands to hit the shuttlecock accurately and send it over the net to the desired position. So giving robots such capabilities required some technological improvements. Photo: @Colchester Leisure World.

Recently, a group of robotics researchers at the Robot Systems Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) designed, built and tested a four-legged robot capable of playing badminton with humans, named ANYmal-D. Photo: @ETH Zurich.

To give the ANYmal-D robot the flexibility it needs to play the sport, researchers equipped it with a stereo camera and a movable arm designed to swing a badminton racket. Photo: @ETH Zurich.

The team also provided the robot with an AI-enhanced machine learning controller that allows it to position itself and react appropriately to the shuttlecock, as well as accurately track the shuttlecock's flight path, predict its trajectory, and move around the court to block and return shots. Photo: @ETH Zurich.

Tests have shown that the training process for the ANYmal-D robot has been effective. Photo: @ETH Zurich.

The robot can move around the field quite well and maintain fights with players for up to 10 consecutive hits. Photo: @ETH Zurich.

The team tested the robot with human players and found that it could move across the field to return the ball at different speeds and angles. Photo: @ETH Zurich.

While the ANYmal-D robot performed well in these test demonstrations, it struggled when faced with fast or powerful blows, such as slamming a shuttlecock. Photo: @ETH Zurich.

According to the research team, this stems from limitations in the perception capabilities of the stereo camera hardware and the speed of the actuators, which will need to be upgraded and further modified in the future. Photo: @ETH Zurich.

Dear Readers, please watch the video : Creepy with a Robot that looks so real and scary - "Usurping" Humanity in the future? Video source: @Top 1 Discovery.

(According to techxplore)

Source: https://khoahocdoisong.vn/robot-bon-chan-choi-cau-long-cung-con-nguoi-post1545329.html