The third incarnation of the University of Tokyo's Janken (Rock-Paper-Scissors) robot never loses. Ever. From the Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory:
In this research we develop a janken (rock-paper-scissors) robot with 100% winning rate as one example of human-machine cooperation systems. Human being plays one of rock, paper and scissors at the timing of one, two, three. According to the timing, the robot hand plays one of three kinds so as to beat the human being.
Recognition of human hand can be performed at 1ms with a high-speed vision, and the position and the shape of the human hand are recognized. The wrist joint angle of the robot hand is controlled based on the position of the human hand. The vision recognizes one of rock, paper and scissors based on the shape of the human hand. After that, the robot hand plays one of rock, paper and scissors so as to beat the human being in 1ms.
This technology is one example that show a possibility of cooperation control within a few miliseconds. And this technology can be applied to motion support of human beings and cooperation work between human beings and robots etc. without time delay.
Considering from another point of view, locating factories oversea has been advantageous in labor-intensive process that requires human's eyes and hands because it is difficult to make the process automatic or it is not worth the cost. However, by realizing faster process than human's working speed, the productivity can be improved in regards to cost. Currently although the cost-cutting of the robot is difficult, it is possible to change the location condition of the factory fundamentally by increasing the speed of the robot including visual function.
