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I want one!The robot invasion continues: snowy slopes are no longer safe from robots. Bojan Nemec from the Jozef Stefan Institute in Slovenia recently presented his skiing robot at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). The robot won’t be winning skiing records anytime soon and its usefulness as a ski instructor or in any other capacity seems quite a ways off. Nonetheless, the videos of this robot taking a ride down the ski slopes are well worth watching.
As the robot slides down the snowy mountain we can see an impressive ability to self balance, change direction, and autonomously sense and navigate around race gates. A gyroscope, four sensors mounted between the skis, and motor position sensors support the lower control of stability and joints. A simple USB camera and a GPS system allow the robot to gather the necessary input to determine its position and calculate what action it should take next. My favorite feature of the ski bot is that it uses normal off the shelf human skis - the robot does not need to cheat by using any sort of custom made ski.
