The play on the familiar phrase "Anyone for tennis" is intentional. ETH Zurich has taught a robot to play Badminton - and the robot is none other than ANYmal, a quadruped robot we have already met.

ANYmal's development began in 2009 as a research project at the Robotic Systems Lab (RSL) at ETH Zurich, under the guidance of Professor Marco Hutter. The initial goal was to create a highly mobile and robust quadrupedal robot that could navigate difficult terrain for tasks like search and rescue. Early prototypes focused on mastering dynamic movements, such as walking, running, and climbing over obstacles.

The company ANYbotics AG, was founded in 2016 to commercialize the ANYmal technology and apply it to industrial use cases. The company's mission is to create a "workforce of autonomous robots" to handle dangerous, repetitive, and dirty tasks in industries like oil and gas, power generation, and chemical production. 

Last time we encountered ANYmal, in Quadrupedal Parkour, it was demonstrating its agility by climbing over obstacles and successfully negotiating pitfalls, core skills needed for an autonomous industrial inspection robot and also for the role of search and rescue robot.

This time Hutter's team of researchers is using the game of Badminton to expand ANYmal's range of skills. The question being addressed is:

How do you get a robot to move, see and hit a shuttlecock back at the same time?

The team has developed a control system that coordinates the leg movements, strokes and the view from two cameras. The robot tracks the shuttlecock, predicts its flight trajectory and navigates to the right spot to intercept and return shots. In this video, Andrei Cramariuc, a postdoctoral researcher in Hutter’s team, outlines how they trained the robot using reinforcement learning, explaining:  

"Sports are very challenging, because they require a lot of fast-moving dynamics. It pushes the limits of the system, and by pushing the limits, we make many iterative improvements on how we control the robot, and on the system itself."

Summing up ANYmal's ability as a Badmintoh player, Cramariuc says:

"For now, it's still friendly matches. I would rate it like a seven-year-old kid playing with their parent. So if someone tried to actually beat it, the robot would have no chance. I think that's something we’re working towards — so you can actually play against it seriously." 

More Information

Playing Badminton Against A Robot

ANYbotics  

Related Articles

Quadrupedal Parkour

ANYmal Evolution and Locomotion 

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