Tai Chi Robots

dknight writes "It seems that Chinese scientists are currently developing a robot which is capable of doing tai chi. The robot is being developed by the Beijing University of Science and Engineering, and is touted to be a great breakthrough in worker safety, as these robots could be used to perform dangerous work. They are supposedly able to sense changes in the slope of the earth around them (hills, etc.) and balance themselves out."

Comments

Credible?

[Grip3n]

I've looked on Google, Yahoo!, and even tried to find the information from other sites containing news from the source AFP (which the site credits the information from) and there is literally no other even mention of this robot on the web. I can't help but wonder about the credibility of this article.

Re:Credible?

[theCat]

I had a doubt too. I searched on the name of the professor, Kejie Li, and not only is that a real professor in China (at one time Professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, China) Kejie Li even gave a talk to the 2001 IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligent for Robotics and Automation, in Banff National Park, Canada, titled "Humanoid Walk Control with Feedforward Dynamic". OK, so they didn't advertise a robot doing Tai Chi at the symposium but they've clearly been up to something. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Re:Credible?

[bheerssen]

This looks like it could be the original source.

I'm don't know what you searched under, but Google returns these results.

Some others have picked up on it, there are some loose translations, but no real original articles. No pictures either.

Yeah, this looks a little vaporous. I hope not,the technology is certainly feasible, but I'm a little skeptical of uncorroborated articles in national chinese news sites. The japanese, however, have a robot that looks promising.

Re:I'd only point out that. . .

[netsharc]

Heh, you have never seen Tai Chi in fast forward. Move your hands forwards and upwards, that blocks the punch and forces the arm of the opponent upwards. One hand stays in front, the other pulls back towards the body. That hand just grabbed the attackers hand, and pulling him down as the other hand smacks him in the face.

It's all about taking the bad guy's force and using it against himself.

Robots will never do Tai Chi (Tajiquan) - Why?

[ebusinessmedia1]

Some facts:

Robots can't do Tai Chi, they can only *mimic* Tai Chi movement...why?

Tai Chi (also called 'Taijiquan' - meaning "body as fist") is a legitimate martial art that has been bastardized in China and the West; it has also become something of a New Age phenonenon.

Why can't a robot do leigitimate Tai Chi? Because training in authentic Tai Chi involves exercises that essentially, over time, 1) dramatically retrain muscle fascia; 2) develop enormous leg strength in the practitioner (necessary; 3) teach the practitioner that *all* movement is controlled from the center (this is where the New Age people get it wrong, as we're talking about *literal* control from the area - front to back - just below the belly button (dantien). This latter quality is what's hard to imagine until one meets a practitioner who has it right. There simply aren't many of these people left, and those who are left tend to be very restrained about teaching everything openly.

Here are some good, authentic places to start - everything below is the 'real deal':
http://www.sixharmonies.org/

http://www.neijia.com/

Others to look for:
Chen Xiao Wang
Chu Tian Cai
Chen Zheng Lei
Wang Xian
Chen Qingzhou

Anything done by any of the above is the 'real deal'. There are also other good practitioners in other 'styles' of taiji. The above group is form Chen Style, the first Taiji style.
Zhu Tian Cai
The reason that Tai Chi exercises are performed slowly is to train the body to move, resting on very strong legs, and allowing the "center" to "leverage" the ground for striking and other martial moves. It's virtually impossibelto describe what this quality 'feel's like. There's no mystery to it however, as it can be trained to various levels depending on the physical ability and dedication of the practitioner.

Unfortunately, there are too few authentic Tai Chi practitioners out there who are teaching the "real deal".

Good Tai Chi practice doesn't have to be martial, **but the quality and basics of correct movement HAVE to be present** for it to be called legitimate Tai Chi.

Simply doing Tai Chi 'forms' fluidly is not doing Tai Chi.

In sum, the real physical dynamics and requirements of Tai Chi cannot be simulated by a robot. A robot may *mimic* moves that look like Tai Chi, but that's all.

Here's some videos

[PowermonkeySquared]

Here's some videos...

http://www.tokyodv.com/news/RoboDex2002SDR-3XSon yb ot.html

More Info (direct translation from CCTV)

[AtomicBomb]

CCTV is the major state TV station in China. They have just run a
Taichi Robot story last night. It has a nice photo. The text is in chinese. I don't want to spend too much time for translation. So I just add a few extra points. The university names are my direct translation. They are unlikely to be the correct spelling... I am not a native Mandarin speaker.

• BHR-01 is a 158cm tall humanoid robot, developed in the 863 national technology advancement programe .
• BHR-01 weighs 76kg. It has 32 degree of freedom with extra dexterity around the hand and foot joints.
• Main contributions: improved system integration and gait control.
• The second country developed advanced non-tethered humanoid robot.
• Recent advancement in robotics:
  
  • Security robot (demostrated on Dec 2002), capable of walking up/down stairs/uneven terrain, very flexible hand, can be remote controlled/ in autonomous mode. Targeted application: explosive disposal and handling of armed offender.
  • 12 joint biped robot developed by CheungXua Defense University, capable of moving like a ordinary human (eg move sizeward and other acrobat like movements).
  • Beijing Aerospace University: robot hand capable to handle objects with vastly different texture and hardness.

I am not sure when/how did you do the search. I find
many links related to the posted story, although the content is more or less the same in everyone. It is not at all surprising. The reporters duplicated the official press release from englishdaily.com.cn. In a sense, Chinese is similar to Japanese. Many of these news are not for "export". They just publish the stories in their own language. You really cannot say it does not exist until you search in their own language (if you can...)