Man vs machine: the longest table tennis counter hits in the world
Ji Yunfeng, leader of a team at the Institute of Machine Intelligence, the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, plays table tennis with Xiao Qiu, a robot system they have developed.
A robot and a teacher at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology were presented with a Guinness World Records certificate on Friday for creating the record of the most consecutive table tennis counter hits in the world.
In about two hours, the robot Xiao Qiu and the teacher Ji Yunfeng hit the ball 6,241 times continuously.
The robot was developed by Ji and several students at the university's Institute of Machine Intelligence over the past three years, under the guidance of Zhang Jianwei, a professor at the University of Hamburg.
The robot system, with a six-joint mechanical arm holding a table tennis bat, can hit the ball with both forehand and backhand shots.
Unlike some robots on the market that serve or receive at a fixed location, Xiao Qiu can move on two-dimensional slide rails and achieve real man-machine counteraction.
The robot system can trace and analyze movements of the human player.
To help Xiao Qiu capture movements of its opponent as well as the path and speed of the ball, the team has installed six cameras on a structure above the table – two above the robot, two above the human player and two on the sides.
With its control system empowered by artificial intelligence, the robot can recognize the player's movements, predict the path of the ball, make judgement and hit the ball in half a second.
Throughout the two hours against Ji, Xiao Qiu's performance was quite stable.
"Xiao Qiu is a robot with autonomous learning ability," said Ji. "It has been playing with me for a long time to learn about my playing habits and make quick response. If it plays with another person, it will need time to collect new data about the player's habits."
Ji said the team will add more functions to Xiao Qiu to enable it to help people in need of rehabilitation.
Their long-term goal is to develop a biped robot that can walk flexibly in front of the table to play table tennis with amateurs or even athletes.
Ji Yunfeng (center) and his team with the Guinness World Records certificate.
The Guinness World Records certificate for Ji and Xiao Qiu
