Juggling robot

Citation

(2001), "Juggling robot", Industrial Robot, Vol. 28 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2001.04928aab.003

"Juggling robot"

"Juggling robot"

Keywords Japan, Robots, Sensors

It is said that the "juggling" robot developed by the University of Tokyo's engineering department will ultimately enable robots to throw and catch moving objects with precision. Indeed, tests to date have shown that "a special arm can toss and catch two small balls thrown at 0.5 second intervals more than ten consecutive times".

In theory, a ball thrown by a robot should always land in a precise location, but in practice the ball slips slightly in the robot's hand and lands in a different location from that originally computed. The "juggling" robot uses information from its sensors to revise the predicted landing spot and moves accordingly.

In the test to evaluate the control system's performance, the researchers had an arm-shaped robot juggle two 4.5cm diameter plastic balls. The robot used was a horizontally-moving industrial robot turned sideways on, so as to move up and down. The arm was equipped with the means to catch the balls, and with a sensor that detected the direction of the balls' flight.