In Switzerland, made a robot, who beats a man in table football

Specialists from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne made a robot that can play table football with a man. In most of the football battles in miniature, the robot defeats man. This is not a system made on the knee, but a project on which its authors have worked for several years. It was completed thanks to the emergence of new types of electric motors and high-speed cameras.

The camera is located under the football field, which is completely transparent. She photographs the field from below at a frequency of 300 shots per second, recording the slightest change in the position of the ball. The collected information is then transferred to a computer unit, where all data is processed in real time. After analyzing each of the situations, the computer gives commands to football "players", and they begin to act. The accuracy of the positioning of football players with servo drives is less than a millimeter.


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Each figure can hit the ball with acceleration up to 9g. To control the figures used linear motors with high dynamic performance. They can install a plastic player on the field in the desired position, after which an electromotor of a different type ensures that the ball is hit. The robot moves faster than humans.

Now the system can quickly determine the location of the ball, stop it and send it right on target. "This is a fairly basic strategy, but it works surprisingly well," said Christophe Salzmann, the scientist who leads the project.


Image: Alain Herzog / EPFL

So far, the inventors are not too satisfied with what happened. They talk about the project as follows: "At this level, our system is like a bodybuilder with a tiny brain." “We want to make our system not only strong and fast, but also smart, so that the robot can deceive our opponent, predict some situations on the field, understand where the ball can go in the next moment and how important each opponent’s action is.”



In the near future, developers will add to their system more lasers that can more accurately control the figures and the ball on the field. In addition, software will be refined. The developers are planning to create a system that can simultaneously control two teams on the field, so that both teams work under the complete control of the robot.