New robot can catch, throw, and hit a baseball, nearly matching human capabilities

A robotics team at the RAI Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has built AthenaZero, a robot designed to catch, throw, and hit a baseball with performance that approaches human capability in controlled lab tests. Led by Andrew Morgan, the system uses arms closer in “effective mass” to human limbs to react on a human timescale, aiming to overcome a common problem: fast balls bounce off heavy, geared robot hands before fingers can close. AthenaZero’s effective mass is about a tenth of standard collaborative robot arms, with roughly 5 turns of gearing to one. In tests, its fastest throw reached 69 mph, and it caught a ball at 41 mph. The team reported pressure sensors for touch feedback and said it can play catch with a person.