Hierarchical processing architecture for an air-hockey robot system

In this study, we design a novel air-hockey robot system that switches strategies according to the playing styles of its opponent. The system consists of a four-axis robot arm and two high-speed vision sensors. We control the robot using visual information received at a rate of 500Hz. The control system consists of three layers: motion control, short-term strategy, and long-term strategy. In the motion control layer, the robot is controlled by visual information of the puck. In the short-term strategy layer, motion of the robot is changed according to the motion characteristics of the puck. In the long-term strategy layer, the motion of the robot is changed according to the playing style of the opponent. By integrating the three control layers, the robot exhibits human-like reactions, which increase the appeal of the game. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of our proposed method.