Toyota has once again made history with its basketball-playing humanoid robot, CUE, earning its second Guinness World Record. This achievement highlights the automaker’s continuous push to blend robotics and sports, advancing technology in unexpected ways.
Since the early days of basketball, humans have faced the challenge of putting a ball, typically 30 centimeters in diameter, through a basket situated 10 feet above the ground. The task is further complicated by the fact that the ball must navigate through a basket with an open bottom, requiring players to repeatedly launch the ball to achieve a goal.
Despite the resources and efforts poured into perfecting basketball techniques, the task remains an ongoing challenge. But Toyota’s innovative solution to this problem comes in the form of CUE, a humanoid robot designed to independently play basketball. Combining both physical and cognitive abilities, CUE is capable of dribbling and locating and retrieving balls with remarkable precision.
While CUE’s mobility is limited—it does not walk but moves on wheels attached to its feet—its performance on the court is impressive. The robot has been continuously refined, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in robotics and artificial intelligence.
Toyota has set clear milestones for CUE, with each achievement marking a new chapter in the development of robotic sports. In 2019, CUE set its first Guinness World Record for the Most Consecutive Basketball Free Throws by a Humanoid Robot, successfully completing 2,020 shots. The milestone was significant, as Toyota chose to stop at that number due to the sheer repetitiveness of the feat.
Now, CUE has broken another record, this time for the Farthest Basketball Shot by a Humanoid Robot. The robot launched a basketball a staggering 24.55 meters (80 feet and 6 inches), surpassing the previous record and setting a new standard for what robotic athletes can achieve.
With its second world record, Toyota’s CUE robot continues to demonstrate the growing potential of robotics in both sports and other fields, paving the way for future advancements that could redefine human-robot interaction.
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