A small team of roboticists at Robotic Systems Lab, ETH Zurich, in Switzerland, has designed, built and tested a four-legged robot capable of playing badminton with human players.

In their study, published in the journal Science Robotics, the group used a reinforcement learning-based controller to give the robot the ability to track, predict and respond to the movement of a shuttlecock in play, demonstrating the feasibility of using multi-legged robots in dynamic sports scenarios.

Badminton is a sport similar to tennis, the main difference being the use of a shuttlecock rather than a tennis ball. The goal is the same: to hit the shuttlecock over a net placed midcourt to an awaiting opponent.