A Robot Plays Catch as you do

Disney researchers invented a robot that plays catch as you do! By using a theme park type animatronic humanoid, they developed catching game scenario.

“We use an external camera system (ASUS Xtion PRO LIVE) to locate balls and a Kalman ﬁlter to predict ball destination and timing. The robot’s hand and joint-space are calibrated to the vision coordinate system using a least-squares technique, such that the hand can be positioned to the predicted location.

Successful catches are thrown back two and a half meters forward to the participant.”