Amazing project. I would never have thought that a robot could juggle two balls. Thanks for linking to your blog, I will have to study your notes, pretty interesting!
This is a great implementation from an excellent lab - but it is worth noting that this kind of juggling was achieved circa 1990, also using real-time visual feedback, by Rizzi, Buehler, Burridge, Whitcomb, and Koditschek. I saw that system juggle two balls for hours.
It's a "Delta" robot invented by Prof. Clavel at EPFL, Switzerland, among the fastest robots in the world. It's somewhat surprising because the pad cannot be tilted, which means it remains perfectly horizontal, and the balls movements are almost vertical. To really juggle like with 2 hands, yu would need a tiltable pad, i.e. 5 degrees of freedom instead of 3 like here
@paulclinger Very awesome. And I agree, going straight to C would definitely make it faster. Looking forward to when you have the time, energy and desire to use this, cause I would love to see 5 ping pong balls up there.
@paulclinger No, they are not trajectory following controllers. They are feedback controllers, with clever phase regulation between dynamical systems (talk to Eric Klavins at UW re: phase regulation!). I guarantee you'd really enjoy reading the old papers by Buehler, Rizzi, Burridge, and Koditschek. I'm doing my sabbatical at UW, and I'd love to chat with you about this! Also, I'd love to see your robot! I'll be back in Seattle in January. Again, yours is a cool implementation.
@paulclinger well it's a very impressive achievement, either way. I hope you keep on improving this design to the point where it can constantly juggle 2 or more balls, indefinitely. Thought of any practical uses for this system, yet? I think it has potential but i'm not sure what it could be used for.
The robot can detected and hit balls, some day they will detect humans and have laser cannons equipped....I'm so excited to join the forces of John Connor
Very impressive. Can it be programmed as to constantly juggle the two balls, without them colliding with each other or losing one of them, like it's shown in the video?
Does it even "know" there are two balls? Because that way it could calculate how to make it so the balls dont hit eachother. It looks like it calculates without taking account to wether there are 1 or 2 balls which makes it impossible for the balls to not hit eachother eventually.
cool stuff but whats the practical, future applications? excuse my ignorance in computer science/hardware engineering, but isnt the algorithm just essentially : track ball -> calculate landing -> move paddle there -> raise in z-coord. by some scalar, k (the random stuff that you describe, ie exert force which is back-calculated). this is probably much easier said than done, but im just curious.
@paulclinger Perhaps think about adding a conditional allowing the robot to - in the event of a collision - plot the predicted trajectory of both balls, and choose to go after the easiest (be that closest or slowest). This would allow a more graceful recovery in the event of a ball collision. Got source code up anywhere? I have done no robotics, but I am interested in real time analysis of data as it relates to robotics. Do you have any good resources for a holiday project I could do
i thought somewhere in the end you would've attempted to drop in a 3rd ping pong ball haha. wait so it has a camera in it? i mean it has to because that would only make sense
@UnicycleFilms its an illusion!! we arent entertained by simple things... this proves it, as we all know that at this point in time its incredibly complex to design such a thing!! its just like watching butterflies flap around. entertaining, yes! why? because life is so complex o.o oo how strange a simple thing such as a youtube comment can entertain me... or is it that human emotions and observations are linked in such complex ways that entertain me... BAHAHAH!! goin crazy...
I love all the smartasses on this vid. but i know they aren't stupid enough to actually mean what they say. lawl. QUESTION: is there any place where we can find reading on the control used for this?
Yo quiero aprovechar para decir que las fotos de la bizca que pusieron ayer en yonkis eran una pedazo de mierda épica. Eran malas hasta decir basta. En cuanto al video este pues muy bien eh...
y ahora llegan los españoles con los comentarios incultos!!! menos mal que no todos los españoles somos tan simples. Esto lo hacen los ingenieros en sus ratos libres, asiq echadle un poco de imaginación al asunto y no seamos tan simples!
