Recent developments within the robotics industry have led engineers, scientists and software programmers to some ground-breaking innovations that can help change the world. Some humanoid robotic devices can help paraplegic individuals by allowing them to move robotic limbs, while others inventions grant robots the power of thought. Recently, researchers from Zhejiang University in East China have developed a newer humanoid machine capable of playing ping pong.
In their debut on October 9, Wu and Kong, two robotic machines, played a table tennis match at the university. Their names are derived from Sun Wukong, a character from a Chinese epic novel who represents agility and intelligence, according to Truth Dive.
The humanoids track the ping-pong balls using mounted cameras that can monitor 120 images per second. The images are then transmitted to the machine's processor unit which allows the robot to calculate where the ball will land according to its speed, trajectory and angle. The margin of error is only 2.5 millimeters for the calculations that take 50 to 100 milliseconds, the news source reported.
Although humans base their table tennis playing on intuition and experience, the robots are programmed to use complicated algorithms that generally come out to the same type of motion.
Each robot is slightly taller than 5 feet and weighs just more than 120 pounds. In their debut, the robots were dressed in traditional Chinese attire, and they each have arms, legs, eyes, ears and hair just like a human, Truth Dive noted.
"We tried to develop a robot that is capable of accurate control and instant, continuous response," Xiong Rong, the chief designer at Zhejiang University's robotics laboratory, told the news source. "Table tennis creates higher requirements for the robots in terms of reaction time, visual processing, identification and calculation."
Table tennis isn't the ultimate goal for the research team, but is just a way to demonstrate the nearly endless possibilities of the robotics industry. One day, they hope to have a more practical benefit to society by possibly creating a wave of new jobs.
Similar robotics innovations are being created every day. In Japan, researchers have developed a robot that can actually think for itself. If the machine is given a command that it doesn't understand, its processor can access the internet and conduct research to find out what the command is and how to fulfill it, according to AFP.
Combining calculated reactions with the ability of thought, robots will likely soon be able to learn how to perform a variety of tasks that may improve the lives of the humans they serve.
