Beijing: Chinese experts have developed two humanoid robots that can play table tennis. Wu and Kong are programmed to serve, return and score.
The robots, each 1.6 metres tall and 55kg in weight, made their debut on Sunday at Zhejiang University in eastern China. They played table tennis with each other and with human players.
Decked out in old-fashioned Chinese jackets, they have arms, legs, eyes, ears and hair, just like humans.
The robots track table tennis balls using eye-mounted cameras, predicting the movement of the balls and responding accordingly, China's state-owned Xinhua news agency reported.
Human players rely on experience and intuition to track the balls and return them to their opponents. The robots, on the other hand, use a complicated system, according to Xiong Rong, chief designer at the university's robot lab.
The cameras capture 120 images per second, transmitting the images to the robots' processors and allowing them to respond appropriately after calculating the ball's position, speed, angle, landing position and path, said Xiong.
It takes just 50 to 100 milliseconds for the robots to respond, he added, and their ability to predict the ball's landing position is quite accurate, with a margin of error of just 2.5 cm.
"We tried to develop a robot that is capable of accurate control and instant, continuous response," he said.
The robots derive their names from Sun Wukong or "Monkey King", a central character in an epic Chinese novel.
