The intersection of sports, physical fitness and technology can be found in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood Green.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, former Steelers running back Jerome Bettis and local officials toured Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Innovation Center for the university’s “Powering the Future of Sport” showcase.
More than 16 CMU-related startups — ranging from an immersive, 3D sports experience to a “snakebot” designed to crawl, climb and even swim to hard-to-reach places — were on display Wednesday.
Bettis played for the Steelers from 1996 to 2005. He observed how the next wave of technology will impact sports.
“It’s going to change the game that we love and know, it’ll be a totally different game by the time (my son) looks at the NFL,” he said, referring to his son, Jerome Jr., who plays football for Notre Dame. “The game is evolving.”
One such invention is an exoskeleton created by CMU’s MetaMobility Lab. The exoskeleton is wearble, AI technology that can adapt to human motion in real time.
Researchers are studying how the exoskeleton can support walking, stair climbing and balance, said Inseung Kang, a mechanical engineering assistant professor at CMU.
“One of the key things we are working on is, ‘How do we create an intelligent system?’” Kang said. “We used different AI techniques to make a model that can infer what’s happening.”
The exoskeleton uses data picked up by its sensors to individually customize solutions for recovery from an injury.
The technology is still in a start-up phase, Kang said.
“Market adaptability is still very limited mainly because the way they control the robot is a single, generic model,” he said. “But the human body is all different, the way we move and behave is all different, so the controller needs to adapt to each individual, which is something we’re addressing.”
Other startups included FuturHand Robotics, a development where a robot can retrieve, hold and use a surgical tool in an operating room.
Students also presented a humanoid robot delivering a Steelers’ Terrible Towel, utilizing the bot’s dual-arm coordination, perception, grasping and decision-making skills.
Researchers are working to create more sophisticated tools for training and conditioning athletes. One human robot was able to play catch with a football with Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor.
Derek Ham, director of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center, said the robot is in the first of three phases. Researchers can program the robot’s arm strength and targets, and they hope to have it catch and tackle in the future.
Ham envisions the technology as “a whole new era of entertainment.”
“We’re at the early eve where physical computing and AI start seeing bots as objects for entertainment, for games and play,” he said. “It would not be far-fetched to see a five versus five bots on a field playing bot versus bot, or bots on human teams.”