A group of researchers from the Swiss National Institute of Technology (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL) has created a high-speed robotic arm capable of catching airborne objects that throw him.
The system evaluates the shape of the object, its trajectory of flight and position in space at the point of interception.
The highlight of the project is a learning system - the first man, a manipulator moving in the direction of the flying object, the program shows a very rough, approximate scheme of action. After that is done independent of "tuning" algorithm. The result you can see on the video.
At the moment, this system has two main drawbacks:
1) tracking of objects does not occur directly from the manipulator, and using multiple cameras located in different parts of the room.
2) The items must be equipped with infra-red markers to the camera to recognize them.
Source:
habrahabr.ru/post/222599/
