Ultra-fast boxing robots could be used for real-life fighting game

Remotely operated one-armed boxing robots, inspired by the 2011 movie Real Steel, can respond to a person's movements in as little as one hundredth of a second. "Taking inspiration from the film and incentivised by the entertainment value, we decided to see if we can realise the concept of real life fighting robots," says Yining Geng at the Qibo Robot Company in Weihai, China, which created the robots, dubbed QIBBOTs. Turning the movie's premise into reality required robots that can operate faster than anything previously seen. Remotely operated robots are already used for applications including surgery and seabed exploration, but all have a time-lag or latency, typically 100 milliseconds. This doesn't interfere with the careful, deliberate movements of surgery or remote sample collection, but it does impair the experience of a fast-moving fighting game.