Researcher Katharina Muelling poses with a ping pong playing robot she and her team at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany designed and built. The robot is comprised of an arm to which a paddle is attached as well as a camera that watches the table and area of play, responding to the opponent's moves. (Source: The Technical University of Darmstadt)
This is astounding. It's not hard to imagine this robot beating all humans in ten years. By the way, I notice no one hits to the robot's "backhand." I wonder why.
I must say, 88% return rate is much better than me. But I would be surprised if it could beat a series of new players consistently. Artificial intelligence may seem like a fantasy far into the future, but simple forms of artificial learning are already possible, and are quite formidable. This is definitely the first step in the right direction.
From the bot's perspective, the ball is probably moving in slow motion. A 60Hz sample rate is near in-human. Average reaction time in humans hovers around 200ms.
The first sentence is pretty funny. I've often wondered if some people were robots: not only in sports, but in customer service conversations, both on the phone and by email. As robots get more humanoid looking that's going to be harder to determine even with visual cues.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New disc magnet motors fit into the design trend of stepping up to closed loop performance while maintaining the cost advantage of stepper motor technology.
At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
A new battery design, which replaces lithium with abundant and low-cost elemental sulfur, is still in its nascent stages but shows real promise for giving batteries more energy potential.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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