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DailyDirt: Badminton Robots FTW

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We have computers that can beat us at games like chess and Go (and Jeopardy!), but we haven’t seen too many robots that can beat humans at more physical sports like soccer or tennis. We’ve seen some air hockey robots that are nearly unbeatable, so it’s really only a matter of time before robots learn how to play sports with a few more dimensions. Here are some badminton robots that are inching toward playing better than some of us.

• Badminton robots are getting better slowly. This robot has binocular vision from two cameras and was built by students at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. However, it cheats a little bit by using two rackets….
• Just last year, Dong Jiong (a retired badminton professional) played against a couple of these badminton robots on a regulation court. The robots didn’t play very well, but they actually played — and presumably, upgrades will give them superhuman badminton skills someday.
• Badminton robots from the Flanders’ Mechatronics Technology Centre (FMTC) in Belgium were relatively primitive 2013. However, the developers were learning about optimizing the efficiency of robots — not actually trying to create a robot that could beat people at badminton.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: ai, air hockey, artificial intelligence, badminton, dong jiong, flanders' mechatronics technology centre, game algorithms, games, machine learning, robots, university of electronic science and technology of china

DailyDirt: Air Hockey Robots

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There is a decreasing number of games that humans can play against computers and still win. Most of us would lose at chess. If Ken Jennings can’t win Jeopardy! against a computer, the rest of us likely have limited chances. People probably shouldn’t play poker with real money against AI. But we can still have some fun playing, right? Robots can’t beat us at games like tennis and soccer (yet), but they’re getting pretty good at air hockey, so we better watch out….

• Japanese researchers have created a formidable air hockey robot that can adjust its strategy after observing its human opponents. By creating a bot that adapts to its opponents, it makes the game more entertaining for humans. [url]
• In 2008, Nuvation built an air hockey robot in less than 10 weeks. The bot is only good at defense (really really good), so it doesn’t try to win as much as it just never loses (and humans give up). [url]
• The Air Hockeybot 1000 at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh is a permanent robotics exhibition featuring the Nuvation robot. Anyone can play against this bot, but it’s hard to beat a 32-bit computer (the 8-bit version is an easier opponent). [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: ai, air hockey, air hockeybot 1000, algorithm, artificial intelligence, game algorithms, games, robots
Companies: freescale, nuvation

DailyDirt: Cool Robot Videos

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Watching robots in action is far more entertaining than just reading about what robots can do. That’s mostly because there’s always a slight chance that the robot will “go crazy” and do something totally unexpected (and usually destructive). We haven’t included any destructive robot videos here, but the following links are all pretty interesting robot projects:

• Don’t taunt robots that handle knives and de-bone hams for a living. The HAMDAS-R ham de-boning robot makes an excellent gift for the holidays — if you happen to be friends with an industrial ham processing plant owner. [url]
• Smarter cars could play follow-the-leader on highways. Relying on a robot driver, even if it’s following a human driver, seems a bit too risky still. [url]
• A bipedal robot, that runs like people do, uses “pneumatic muscles” which mimic human legs. This robot looks like it still needs to learn how to walk first. [url]
• The world’s first badminton robot doesn’t seem to want to show off its moves too much. Its shyness is probably due to the fact that it’s literally a one-dimensional player — it can only move back and forth along a line. [url]
• Playing air hockey against a robot arm looks like more fun. But after a while, it probably isn’t much fun to play against a “perfect” air hockey defense. [url]

Filed Under: air hockey, autonomous vehicle, badminton, robots