In 1997, the world was shocked when world chess champion Gary Kasparov was defeated by artificial intelligence (AI) Deep Blue. It was the first time a machine had beaten a human, which is the basis for AI beating humans in the games of Go, Starcraft and DoTA. But this did not require physical movement. Sony this morning announced that their robot had become the first to defeat an elite-level ping pong player.
Project Ace is a robot that can play ping pong on its own using AI developed by Sony AI. It comes with Using 9 cameras to allow it to track the movement of the ball and the player in 3D. The AI will compute the movement of the ball at a speed of 20 m/s and 160 rotations per second before it then provides input to the controlled robot.
Its capabilities were tested against 5 elite players and 2 professional players. It won 3 out of 5 matches with one against 1 professional player. This is the first time a robot has defeated a professional ping pong player.
The research paper was published in the journal Nature.
