Could you see yourself cheering for a robot basketball player in the future? That could happen when they’re capable of hitting three-pointers with nearly 100 percent accuracy. CUE 3 is a 6’3″ humanoid robot from Toyota Engineering Society and it’s capable of hitting free throws with almost pinpoint accuracy.
The AP reports that the robot is capable of computing a three-dimensional image of where the basket is. It then uses the sensors on its torse and adjusts the motors inside its arm and knees to make the shot with just the right angle and propulsion.
Stanford University Professor Oussama Khatib said that this robot is capable of demonstrating complex activities which involve using sensors and swift computation in real-time. He refers to this as “visual feedback.” The robot needs a good vision system in order to shoot hoops as it has to compute the ball’s path and then execute the shot.
“What Toyota is doing here is really bringing the top capabilities in perception with the top capabilities in control to have robots perform something that is really challenging,” Khatib said. Nevertheless, the robot is far from taking your favorite player’s position on the team. It can’t even dribble so making a slam dunk is far from possible right now. Who knows, even that might become possible in a few years from now.
Filed in .. Source: asahi