Playing Pong with HOAP-3 robot
Demonstration of a Human-Robot Interaction application where the robot takes the role of an opponent by playing Pong against a user on an old-school arcade game. The robot is connected to the game and thus knows the current state of the game. It then uses a prediction mechanism to handle the latency due to the game and to the dynamics of the robot's hand motion (the robot controls the game only through the joystick and buttons on the arcade game).
By knowing the position of the ball on the screen, it mimicks the visual following of this ball by turning the head appropriately through inverse kinematics.
In a preliminary phase, the robot plays alone at the game to refine its skill through self-calibration.
Video credits: Eric Sauser, Basilio Noris.