This video reminds me of that scene in that movie “War Games” when Matthew Broderick’s character plays Tic Tac Toe against the WOPR for the fate of the world… Cool 80′s movie. Anyway…
The robot in the video, which was developed by the Ishikawa Oku Laboratory in Japan, might seem to be predicting it’s opponents move, but it’s not! It’s a cheater! Using a high-speed camera this robot is able to, not only recognize the shape of it’s opponent’s hand within a few miliseconds, but also decide what the winning hand would be and snap it out. The robot system has a 100% winning rate, so far… Sounds like a job for Chuck Norris…
In this research we develop a janken (rock-paper-scissors) robot with 100% winning rate as one example of human-machine cooperation systems. Human being plays one of rock, paper and scissors at the timing of one, two, three. According to the timing, the robot hand plays one of three kinds so as to beat the human being.
Recognition of human hand can be performed at 1ms with a high-speed vision, and the position and the shape of the human hand are recognized. The wrist joint angle of the robot hand is controlled based on the position of the human hand. The vision recognizes one of rock, paper and scissors based on the shape of the human hand. After that, the robot hand plays one of rock, paper and scissors so as to beat the human being in 1ms.
This technology is one example that show a possibility of cooperation control within a few miliseconds. And this technology can be applied to motion support of human beings and cooperation work between human beings and robots etc. without time delay.
Related stories:
Gizmodo – This Robot Never Loses at Rock, Paper, Scissors Because It’s a Damn Cheater
Spectrum.ieee – Robot Hand Beats You at Rock, Paper, Scissors 100% Of The Time
Democraticunderground – Robot Never Loses at Rock, Paper, Scissors Because It’s a Damn Cheater
