Robot Sumo Battle…BEGIN! (video)

There are many reasons I love Japan but one of the biggest is definitely their penchant for making robots fight to the death. At the 22nd Annual All Japan Robot-Sumo Tournament custom-built bots battled to be king of the ring. While these machines didn't weigh as much as their human counterparts (each competitor was less than 3 kg) they did battle in the same sacred Sumo hall as Japan's top competitors: the Ryogoku Kokugikan. With speed and might, the robot Sumo wrestlers aimed to push each other out of the ring and the results could be really incredible. Watch the videos below to see how quickly the wheeled robots shove one another to victory. Build these things a little bigger and I don't think there would be a human who could stand up to them.

The Robot-Sumo Tournament has two divisions: automated and remote controlled. The automated competitions have robots that detect each other using infrared and ultrasonic sensors and then maneuver to provide the best opportunities to push each other out of the ring. Things start off slow as the bots feel each other out, and then a quick push secures a win.

In RC matches, human operators take the reins and guide their robots in much faster paced bouts. You can see a typical RC collision in the video below. Ironically, the RC matches are fairly automated as well. Because of the high speed needed to win, operators have incorporated many automatic responses into their designs so that their machines can react fast enough to counter the other robot. As such the human operator is more of a coach than a driver.