The Nippon Robotic Baseball (NRB) League

The NRB is not quite yet reality, but given the accomplishments by Japanese researchers, Japan could be the first country to field such an endeavor.

The Associated Press reported that a Japanese researcher at the University of Tokyo, Masatoshi Ishikawa and his team have developed a baseball batting robot that works for balls thrown to it at slow speeds, but with great accuracy. It can bat the balls into a basket at a desired location.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/24/AR2009072401104.html

A pitching robot throws a ball made of polystyrene against a batting robot, right, during a demonstration at University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan, Friday, July 24, 2009. The both robots have been developed by Information Science Technology Prof. Masatoshi Ishikawa. The pitching robot can throw 40 kph (25mph) strike balls at one-meter (3 feet 3 inches) by 0.8-meter (2 feet 6 inches) strike zone set at 3.5-meter (11 feet 5 inches) away with almost 100 percent accuracy and the batting robot can hit them with more than 90 percent accuracy if hey were thrown in to the strike zone.


Japanese professor creates baseball-playing robots
The Associated Press Friday, July 24, 2009 7:47 AM

TOKYO -- Look out Ichiro Suzuki and Daisuke Matsuzaka. A pair of baseball-playing robots that can pitch and hit with incredible results have been developed in Japan.

The pitching robot, with its three-fingered hand, can throw 90 percent of its pitches in the strike zone, won't need any relief from the bullpen and never asks for a pay rise.

The batting robot, which has a sensor to determine if pitches are strikes or balls, hits balls in the strike zone almost 100 percent of the time, doesn't swing at pitches outside the strike zone, and is guaranteed to pass all drug tests.

The two robots were created by University of Tokyo professor Masatoshi Ishikawa.

"The demand level of the robotics technology of each robot is very high," Ishikawa said. "What was difficult was to create a mechanism to satisfy such a high level of demand."

The pitching robot throws a plastic foam ball at 40 kilometers per hour (25 mph), but Ishikawa is hoping to increase the speed to 150 kph (93 mph) and make it able to throw off-speed pitches like curves and sliders.

Ishikawa is also working on getting the batting robot to be able to hit to all parts of the field.

The robots don't resemble humans but instead the type of robots on a car assembly line.

Japan boasts one of the leading robotics industries in the world, and the government is pushing to develop the industry as a road to growth. Automaker Honda has developed the child-sized Asimo, which can walk and talk.

Another Japanese researcher down at Hiroshima University, Dr. Idaku Ishii has already developed a robot able to hit a pitch coming at speeds up to 300 kilometers per hour ...

http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/06/japanese-baseball-robot-can-hit-a-300km-h-pitch-whut

Japanese baseball robot can hit a 300km/h pitch, whut?

by Barb Dybwad, posted Jun 6th 2005 at 6:05AM


Hiroshima University associate professor Idaku Ishii has developed a robot able to cope with some serious fastball action, able to hit a pitch coming at speeds up to 300 kilometers per hour. We're pretty impressed with this, considering we routinely strike out during heated Engadget Whiffle Ball matches. The robot manages such uber-skilldom by instantly analyzing the imaging results from its precision cameras to determine the balls' trajectory, then whammo, socking the living daylights out of it (that's the technical terminoloy, honest). All of which is part of a plan to replace all humans in the sport of baseball with either mechanoids or cartoons, saving the industry millions in salaries and legal fees.