Robo-Rocky? Company makes world’s fastest human-controlled fighting bots

By Dean Murray via SWNS

A company say they have made the world's fastest human-controlled fighting robots.

Chinese firm Qibo Robot Company hopes to pit the machines against each other in competitive sport.

The Weihai-based team say they were inspired by Hugh Jackman-starring sci-fi film Real Steel, in which human boxers have been replaced by robots.

A showcase of the so-called Qibbots sees a human-controlled "tele-robot" boxing against an AI-controlled version.

The human-controlled robo-fighter is seen able to move side-to-side and move its arms at seemingly the same speed as the person controlling it.

Qibo Robot Company explain: "The most challenging problem in fast tele-operation is: the latency in robots' response.

"Qibbot's latency is about 12 milliseconds. This is extremely low compared to other tele-robots."

Qibo say they have compared the latency of their machines against "hundreds of tele-operated robots" and believe they have the world's fastest.

They report: "But, over 95% of today's tele-robots have been designed for slow/medium-speed tasks.

"In those systems, if the operator moves quickly, the robot's response will have an evident latency."

Qibo says "Qibbot was designed for robot fighting games inspired by the sci-fi movie Real Steel."

They add that players can learn to control Qibbot with just one minute of training.

A showcase video features a 'big size' robo-fighter, which is said to weigh 140kg, stands 190cm-tall and has a reach of 150cm.