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PR2 Fencing Robot Perfect For Kwisatz Haderach-in-training

Competitive exercise is perfect for young humans - you can't compete in the Imperium without honing your fencing skills. At least in the world of Dune, created by science fiction author Frank Herbert.

In this work, we aim to motivate research in competitive human-robot interaction (competitive-HRI) by discussing how human users can benefit from robot competitors. We then examine the concepts from game AI that we can adopt for competitive-HRI. Based on these discussions, we propose a robotic system that is designed to support future competitive-HRI research. A human-robot fencing game is also proposed to evaluate a robot's capability in competitive-HRI scenarios.
(Via Competitive Physical Human-Robot Game Play.)

Okay, we're not quite up to the level of a Ginaz Swordmaster, but as always, those of us in the 21st century must start someplace.

As she moved into the training room, Alia caught her own reflection multiplied thousands of times in the crystal prisms of a fencing mirror swinging in the heart of a target dummy. She saw the long sword waiting on its brackets against the target, and she thought: Yes! I'll work myself to exhaustion -- drain the flesh and clear the mind.
The sword felt right in her hand. She slipped the crysknife from its sheath at her neck, held it sinister, tapped the activating stud with the sword tip. Resistance came alive as the aura of the target shield built up, pushing her weapon slowly and firmly away.
Prisms glittered. The target slipped to her left.
Alia followed with the tip of the long blade, thinking as she often did that the thing could almost be alive. But it was only servomotors and complex reflector circuits designed to lure the eyes away from danger, to confuse and teach. It was an instrument geared to react as she reacted, an anti-self which moved as she moved, balancing light on its prisms, shifting its target, offering its counter-blade.
Many blades appeared to lunge at her from the prisms, but only one was real.
(Read more about the fencing mirrors of Dune)

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/11/2021)

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