A four-legged robotic system for playing soccer on various terrains

If you've ever played soccer with a robot, it's a familiar feeling. A four-legged robot is hustling toward you, dribbling with determination. Researchers from MIT's Improbable Artificial Intelligence Lab, part of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), have developed a legged robotic system that can dribble a soccer ball under the same conditions as humans. The bot used a mixture of onboard sensing and computing to traverse different natural terrains such as sand, gravel, mud, and snow, and adapt to their varied impact on the ball's motion. Like every committed athlete, "DribbleBot" could get up and recover the ball after falling.