Tennis Playing Robot Demonstrates Whole Body Control in Humanoid Robotics
Chris Paxton discusses recent advancements in robot sports, particularly the tennis-playing robot from the LATENT paper, showcasing improved whole-body control in humanoid robots. However, he notes the current limitations in onboard sensing and perception, which often rely on external trackers. The post underscores the importance of closing this gap for future robotics development.
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Original source quotation: “Tennis playing robot from the paper LATENT by @Zhikai273 et al - an example of the awesome whole body control now possible with humanoid robots, recent winner of IROS 2026 best paper on entertainment robotics.”
Source E1
Tennis playing robot from the paper LATENT by @Zhikai273 et al - an example of the awesome whole body control now possible with humanoid robots, recent winner of IROS 2026 best paper on entertainment robotics.
What do robot sports teach us? We have seen incredibly cool progress in robot soccer and tennis recently, but just as interesting is what we definitely do not see. Robots are increasingly capable of incredibly fluid, reactive whole body control - but their ability to perceive the world while doing so is incredibly limited. And so we see shortcuts being taken, external trackers used, to avoid the limitations of onboard sensing and sensorimotor control while in challenging environments. The future of robotics will require closing this gap. Some thoughts -> https://itcanthink.substack.com/p/what-do-robot-sports-teach-us?r=3uj5js&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webView the quoted post on X
Source：Chris Paxton · x.com