table tennis robot

So you were looking for a table tennis robot to improve your game? Well this is not really that kind of equipment but it does make the mind wonder what will happen in the future.

A table tennis robot can not reach the speed of the human eye or have the movement ability or complexity of a human but these robots are a step in the direction of basement player for now. Who knows? they may even get even more complex with their shots one day.

The cameras work at 120 frames per second, so as to keep up with the fast moving ball, and it takes around 50 to 100 milliseconds for a robot to respond with a position fix that is accurate to 2.5 cm - it's a good job the bat is bigger. Processing is performed by computers connected to each of the robots.
At the end of the video, you can see examples of the robots playing backhand and forehand strokes and playing with a human. The fluency of movement is impressive.

I hope this project is not over. Nobody probably believed that the computer would eventually beat the best chess player, so I am cautious to say that a robot will never beat the best table tennis player.

I believe for a very long time that the camera tracking for starters will need to perceive spin and strategy or logic and have movement to deal with errors.