Robot Sumo Finals Are Impossibly Fast
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 3 of January , 2011 at 3:25 am
Here in the US, we’re used to robot sumo happening at an, um, relaxing pace. Not so in Japan, as you can see in this vid. It’s from the 2010 All Japan Robot Sumo Finals, specifically the human-driven competition. Unsurprisingly, due to the pace of the match, the robots themselves are doing a lot of the thinking:
The secret is that they build a lot of autonomous functionality into the R/C robots as well. The operator can give the command to attack, but the actual engagement and high speed opponent tracking, is built into the robots.
This makes me wonder what the point is of having a human in the loop at all… It seems like the robots might be able to do a better job of reacting quickly and making decisions in such a confined environment. There’s also a separate category for fully autonomous robots, and here’s that final:
I’m not entirely sure what those big white panels are for, but if I had to guess, I’d say that they’re designed to fool the opponent’s sensors somehow, and if you watch the video closely, they may have worked.
There’s clearly a convergence taking place between the human controlled and autonomous sumo robots, so it’ll be interesting to see how the competition evolves. It’s possible that the two separate competitive categories will combine into one, but it’s hard to say whether the humans or the robots will have the edge, at least at first. While the robots are definitely able to react faster, they’re also restricted by their sensors, and they have less experience with deceptive tactics. But if nothing else, robots are fast learners, and it’s probably only a matter of time before they make humans completely redundant, at least when it comes to sumo.
[ Robot Sumo Finals ] VIA [ Robots Dreams ]
Comments (4)
Category: Competitive,Hobby
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Comment by replica oakley
Made Saturday, 20 of August , 2011 at 7:08 pm
the way it can make it through basically any sort of terrain, even things that would challenge conventional wheeled or tracked robots.
Comment by fake oakley
Made Saturday, 20 of August , 2011 at 7:12 pm
even things that would challenge conventional wheeled or tracked robots.
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Made Monday, 17 of October , 2011 at 11:22 am
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