I'm sorry I hurt you! (via robot-dreams)
Sure Real Steel was an enthralling look at remote-control robot fighting, and who doesn’t like seeing robots beating the bolts out of each other, but could these bot-bouts be done in real life? It already is, albeit on a small scale, with Japan’s ROBO-ONE tournament. Held twice a year since 2002, the ROBO-ONE contest pits bi-pedal humanoid robots (with specific weight classes) on a one vs. one fight with the winner being the robot left standing. This year’s Osaka Robot Festival saw the introduction of Nao Maru’s Real King Kizer battle-bot, which is controlled remotely by Maru’s son. The father/son team uses an Asus Xtion Pro Live RGB and depth sensor (like the Kinect) that’s connected to a netbook equipped with a built-in Bluetooth device. The captured motion from the ‘pilot’ is then sent wirelessly to the robot, which is equipped with another Bluetooth device that connects with an RCB-3 control board, to move the 3 foot 2 inch bot in master/slave fashion. While there is some noticeable delay with the movements of the controller and the robots actions, it’s still pretty interesting to see as this brings us one step closer to the robot boxing portrayed in Real Steel.
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