Headline: Swiss Engineers Create Badminton-Playing Robot
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Watch out racket sport maestros, because Swiss researchers have built a robot that can play badminton. Though, according to researchers, the robot's level is that of a seven-year-old child - so it's not quite ready to take on humans competitively yet it can competently hold a friendly rally and move around a court. The ETH Zurich team, led by Professor Marco Hutter, an expert in robotic systems, has developed a control system that allows a four-legged robot to track, predict and return shots. The machine, known as ANYmal, uses two cameras to follow the shuttlecock and calculate its flight path. It then positions itself to intercept and hit the return shot, coordinating its leg movements, strokes and camera vision in real time. The robot was taught how to play badminton through reinforcement learning as it was taken through a simulator where it could trial and error thousands and thousands of virtual shots, until it eventually learned to hold a rally with humans.
Keywords: Science & Technology,Swiss researchers,robot,badminton,ETH Zurich,Professor Marco Hutter,robotic systems,ANYmal,four-legged robot,cameras,shuttlecock,flight path,control system,leg coordination,strokes,real-time tracking,postdoctoral researcher Andrei Cramariuc,reinforcement learning,simulator,training,trial and error,technical challenges,sports robotics,autonomous operation,quadrupedal robot,roller-walking machine,competitive play,human-level performance,robotics,artificial intelligence,machine learning,automation,robotics research,sports technology,humanoid robotics,agile robots,robot training,robotics engineering,robotics innovation,robot control systems,robotic vision,robot locomotion,robot sensors,robotics simulation,future technology,robotics development,engineering,science,innovation,technology experiments,robotics applications,quadruped robots,AI in sports
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