Watch Toyota's robot basketball player hit three-pointers

Toyota Engineering Society's CUE 3 is a 6'3" humanoid robot reportedly hits free throws with nearly 100 percent accuracy. From the AP:

(The robot) computes as a three-dimensional image where the basket is, using sensors on its torso, and adjusts motors inside its arm and knees to give the shot the right angle and propulsion for a swish...

Stanford University Professor Oussama Khatib, who directs the university's robotics lab, said Cue 3 demonstrates complex activities such as using sensors and nimble computation in real-time in what he called "visual feedback."

To shoot hoops, the robot must have a good vision system, be able to compute the ball's path then execute the shot, he said in a telephone interview.

"What Toyota is doing here is really bringing the top capabilities in perception with the top capabilities in control to have robots perform something that is really challenging," Khatib said.

"Toyota robot can't slam dunk but it shoots a mean 3-pointer" (AP/Asahi Shimbun)