KUKA robot goes up against table tennis champion Timo Boll
KUKA just published the well-advertised video of the table tennis match of top athlete Timo Boll and one of its fastest robots, the KUKA KR AGILUS. Don’t forget that even if the actual movements performed by the robot are real, the match is a directed and scripted advertisement with multiple takes (as you can see in the making of video below). It’s a very impressive presentation of the agility and speed of AGILUS, but it’s not an actual match. KUKA is celebrating with a very popular sport in China to mark the occasion of its new plant in Shanghai.
Hype aside, will the KUKA robot be able to beat a real ping pong champion? We can only watch. Thus far there’s been no details about the vision system and software used by KUKA. There are, however, stats for the Agilus robot – a single-armed 5 axes robot with a reach of 35.4”.