[CeBIT 2012] I did not expect to find this uber-fun demo at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) at CeBIT, but it looks like scientists can have humor sometimes.
The technology behind this Angry Birds-like robotic character is quite complex and requires some serious research and development: it combines real-time image processing with probabilities modeling of knowledge about the characteristics of ball trajectories.
Dr. Tim Laue and his team from the Cyber-Physical Systems Research Department at DFKI developed an entertainment system codenamed “Piggy” which is capable of playing independently in an interactive ball game with a group of people. The system – also known as the B-Catch Project – is reduced to two driven degrees of freedom, to allow cost effective production.
Tim performed a demonstration at the DFKI booth at CeBIT and I videotaped it. For now, you have to know that the ball has to be thrown not too far from Piggy’s arm to make it work properly, but the result is still impressive… and fun!
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