The DLR’s (German Aerospace Agency) flagship robot known as Rollin’ Justin has been modified and improved so that it is able to catch balls which are thrown in its direction at an accuracy rate that is on the higher end of 80%. That’s pretty good – clumsy guys like me have a lower accuracy rate, but at least I know when to call it quits. That’s one thing you have about robots – they just don’t know when to stop, not at least until they run out of juice or are commanded to stop. To know more about how Rollin’ Justin works, head on after the jump to check out the video.The video below shows off Rollin’ Justin that is capable of tracking and calculating the flight path of two balls that are thrown towards it at once. It has enough “brains” to position its hands reliably to within 2cm of the ball’s estimated catch point in space, taking all of just 5 milliseconds to do so. Needless to say, this is an extremely intense task that Justin will require the use of external computers in order to handle some of the processing – and this just goes to show how much better our brains are being made in such a complex manner.
It is only a matter of time though before robots are capable of carrying around digital brains that are powerful enough to perform such jobs without requiring an external computer.