Humanoid robot seen playing tennis with humans in video | Latest Tech News
Can a robot keep up with Serena Williams?
Researchers have taught a humanoid robot to play tennis with humans — and it might probably maintain its own.
Chinese AI robotic company Galbot designed software program to train a Unitree G1 humanoid robot to play tennis against a human engineer.
The company posted a video to social media exhibiting a white robot holding what seems to be an unmodified tennis racket and utilizing it to return the ball as it shuffles across the court.
“Your humanoid tennis player is here!” Galbot wrote on X. “For the first time, a humanoid robot can sustain high-dynamic, long-horizon tennis rallies with millisecond-level reactions, precise ball striking, and natural whole-body motion.”
“This marks a leap from mechanical motion imitation to intelligent, decision-driven athletic interaction.”
Researchers have taught a humanoid robot to play tennis with humans. Galbot
The software program is dubbed LATENT (Learning Athletic Humanoid Tennis Skills from Imperfect Human Motion Data), and the company claims it’s the world’s first real-time whole-body planning and control algorithm for athletic humanoid tennis.
According to a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, the system had to rely on “imperfect human motion data” consisting only of “motion fragments that capture the primitive skills used when playing tennis” moderately than clean movement seize from “real-world tennis matches.”
The short fragments of human motion used have been made up of issues like forehand swings, backhand strokes and basic footwork. These movement fragments grow to be a library of motion building blocks which the robot stitches together and figures out how to mix them in real time.
A white robot is holding what seems to be an unmodified tennis racket and utilizing it to return the ball. Galbot
🎾Your humanoid tennis participant is right here!🤖
Introducing LATENT (Learning Athletic Humanoid Tennis Skills from Imperfect Human Motion Data) — the world’s first real-time whole-body planning and control algorithm for athletic humanoid tennis.
For the first time, a humanoid robot can… pic.twitter.com/gCi38wxHVQ
— Galbot (@GalbotRobotics) March 16, 2026
When it comes to wrist control, the robot’s high-level controller instantly adjusts the wrist during play moderately than utilizing the “imperfect” data.
The robot can maintain multi-shot tennis matches with humans, reacting to balls touring over 15 meters per second, which is about 33.5 miles per hour, and manages to produce coordinated strokes and footwork.
The actions produced look comparatively natural — particularly for a robot. It’s not precisely fluid like a human, but it’s not inflexible and robotic either.
The robot can react to balls touring over 15 meters per second, which is about 33.5 miles per hour. Galbot
“Our key insight is that, despite being imperfect, such quasi-realistic data still provide priors about human primitive skills in tennis scenarios,” the researchers discovered.
“With further correction and composition, we learn a humanoid policy that can consistently strike incoming balls under a wide range of conditions and return them to target locations, while preserving natural motion styles.”
In simulation exams, the system achieved up to 96% success in forehand photographs.
The short fragments of human motion used for data have been made up of issues like forehand swings, backhand strokes and basic footwork. Galbot
However, the engineers said that the software program might be useful past the flexibility to play tennis.
“Although this work primarily focuses on the tennis return task, the proposed framework has the potential to generalize to a broader range of tasks where complete and high-quality human motion data are unavailable,” they famous.
If a robot can be taught a sophisticated bodily talent like tennis from imperfect data, it suggests that related approaches can work for real-world duties as properly.
Earlier this 12 months, it was reported that bots resembling humans may fold laundry, reply doorways and even get you espresso.
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