Vietnamese robot with ping pong player in a Japanese fair

TOPIO, robots know how to play ping pong and express their emotions, because a group of young friends of TOSY in Hanoi made great attention at International Robot Exhibition 2007 - the largest robot show in the world. on November 28, in Tokyo.

TOPIO - short for Tosy Pingpong Playing Robot - has head, 2 arms and 6 legs below (a total of 20 joints), making it very flexible due to hydraulic mechanism. This " athlete " is made of super durable, ultra-light synthetic carbon material that can move at high speeds.

Image introduced by TOPIO.(Photo: Tosytoy)

TOPIO integrates 4 high-speed cameras and 2 powerful configurations to identify the path and spin of the ball immediately after leaving the opponent's racket and bounce back very fast and strongly.

Programmed with an advanced artificial intelligence module (AI), the robot also has the ability to upgrade its own skills right in every game of table tennis. That makes the team believe that " creating a robot to beat people playing professional table tennis " is entirely possible.

Not stopping, TOPIO can also actively play, memorize - announce points and show your attitude in different humorous ways when winning or losing.

According to Ho Vinh Hoang, TOPIO project architect, the new robot was developed for 2 years, this time is the first version with the goal of testing flexibility, accuracy and intelligence in the ability to handle High-speed ball physics to be the foundation for future versions. 'TOPIO's next model will be developed in the direction of having 2 legs moving like humans. We not only hope that TOPIO will play ping pong but also participate in other sports such as running, football, billiards, martial arts, sword dancing, climbing . and applications in the future. live, 'said Hoang.

International Robot Exhibition 2007 (lasting until December 2) is the first place to witness the appearance of TOPIO. This product has not even been known to the Vietnamese information technology community.

The authors said that since the opening of the exhibition, robots from Vietnam have created a great surprise for the technology community and visitors from over 100 countries around the world. TOPIO received many invitations to attend high-tech exhibitions in the US and Germany . and even offered to return to Japan in 2008.

The next destination of robot TOPIO will be the famous Spielwarenmese Toy Fair of Germany, taking place in Nuremburg city in early February 2008.

TOPIO (red in the far corner) fights table tennis with people.
(Photos provided by the author team, VNE)

Nguyen Ha