Four-legged robot plays badminton with humans

Researchers at ETH Zurich’s Robotic Systems Lab have created a four-legged robot, named ANYmal-D, capable of playing badminton with humans. The robot, described in Science Robotics, uses a stereo camera, a dynamic arm, and a reinforcement‑learning‑based controller to track and hit a shuttlecock. The team also implemented a “perception noise model” to help the robot adapt to real‑world play, TechXplore has reported. Testing showed that ANYmal‑D could move around the court and rally with human players for up to 10 consecutive shots.