Omron Ping Pong Robot Upgraded

[CEATEC 2015] Omron’s ping pong playing robot is back again this year, and you can be sure that it too, would have drawn quite a significant amount of attention from the masses as well. Of course, what is the whole point of showing off old technology if you are not going to spiff it up with something new? Omron has done exactly that, where it does look as though the software upgrades and algorithms within are able to make it predict the ball’s movement better as well as make drop shots at the net which can be rather tricky to return.

Based on those who actually went up against the ping pong robot, there were two choices to pick from – one would be “Easy”, while the other is “Normal”. If you would have noticed from the image above and in the image gallery, the table is different from last year’s – it is no longer your average ping pong table, but a high end model with a built-in display underneath. Before a match begins, the “umpire” holds a ping pong ball above your side of the court, and depending on the difficulty level that you would like to go up against, the ball is dropped on that section. This shows that the table itself has built-in pressure sensors all over the place, and I suppose this is for it to analyze and better prepare for shots as you rally with the robot.

There seems to be more net play involved under “Normal” mode, but so far we have yet to see the Omron ping pong robot actually perform those crazy fast rallies that seem to be a staple with a really good ping pong match – perhaps version 3 next year?

Edwin Kee
Categories: Robots
Tags: CEATEC, ceatec 2015, omron, ping pong