In Switzerland, we made the robot, beat human table football

Specialists from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne made a robot that can play with human table football. In most of the battles of football in miniature robot man wins. This is not done on the knee system, a project on which the authors worked for several years. Finish it was possible thanks to the emergence of new types of electric motors and high-speed cameras.

The camera is located under the football field, which cavity is transparent. She photographs the bottom field with a frequency of 300 frames per second, capturing the slightest change in the position of the ball. The collected information is then fed into a computer unit where all the data is processed in real time. After analyzing each of the situations the computer gives the team football "players", and they begin to act. Positioning accuracy servo players - less than a millimeter.



Each figure can hit the ball with an acceleration of up to 9g. linear motors with high performance figures are used for control. They can install a plastic player on the field in the desired position, after which the electric motor of a different type provides a perfect strike on the ball. It moves the robot faster than a human.

Now the system can quickly determine the location of the ball, stop it and send it right on target. "It's a pretty basic strategy, but it works surprisingly well", - says Christoph Salzmann (Christophe Salzmann), a scientist who directs the course of the project.



Image: Alain Herzog / EPFL

So far, the inventors are not too satisfied with the result. They talk about the project as follows: "At this level, our system looks like a bodybuilder with a tiny brain." "We want to make our system not just strong and fast, but also smart, so that the robot could deceive the opponent, predict part of situations in the field, understand where can get the ball in the next moment, and how important each action the opponent."



In the near future developers will add to your system and even lasers that can more precisely control the figurines and ball on the field. In addition, will be further developed and the software. Developers plan to build a system that can operate at the same time the two teams on the field, so that both teams worked under the full control of the robot.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/279682/