Sony's Ace Robot Secures Wins in Some Table Tennis Matches Against Human Players, Per Nature Study

Sony AI researchers have developed a robot named Ace that won matches against human table tennis players, as detailed in a new study published in Nature. Ace competed with five high-level amateur players, securing three wins out of five matches. Against two professional players from the Japanese league, Minami Ando and Kakeru Sone, the robot won one out of seven matches.

Analysis showed Ace successfully repelled 75 percent of the balls during these exchanges. The robot faced these high-level athletes in matches played according to the official rules of table tennis. Ace can read the trajectory of a ball, adjust the racket angle, and respond with strokes that keep the exchange alive with real players.

Ace is composed of three main parts, including a perception system that detects the rotation of the ball. It also features an artificial intelligence system that makes decisions in real time. The setup includes high-speed robotic hardware with an eight-jointed robotic arm.

Table tennis requires split-second decisions as well as speed and power. In contrast to virtual competitions where artificial intelligence systems have won in chess, Go, and StarCraft II, physical games like table tennis present greater challenges. ' The story was originally published by WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.

Robots like Ace could offer ways to learn new techniques and skills to improve player performance in other fields. Once AI operates at a human expert level, it will pave the way for new real-world applications.