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" When Popular Mechanics visited the set of Real Steel\u2014which takes place in a not-too-distant future where robots face off in the boxing ring\u2014leading man Hugh Jackman asked us, &amp;quot;Will robots really be this advanced in 10 years?&amp;quot; We had a partial answer: The film, out Oct. 7, touches on current and developing robot technologies, but bot boxing would require major advances. Still, Jackman&amp;#039;s curiosity prompted us to dig deeper. Real Steel&amp;#039;s bots fight with human motor skills and even adapt to their opponents&amp;#039; moves. According to Drew Bagnell, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University&amp;#039;s Robotics Institute, researchers are currently studying robotic balance and fluid movement. The University of Michigan&amp;#039;s biped robot MABEL, for example, can run 6.8 mph and keep its balance while reacting to its environment. In Real Steel, bot boxer Atom learns to spar by mimicking Jackman&amp;#039;s movements. Something similar is occurring in real life. &amp;quot;We got the best performance out of DARPA&amp;#039;s Crusher robot when a human showed it how to drive,&amp;quot; Bagnell says. &amp;quot;It learned to associate sensor readings with things people avoid and things they drive over; that made it able to drive in places it had never visited before. What happens in Real Steel is [easier], because the robot is mimicking simple trajectories.&amp;quot; Another bot, Zeus, studies the fight styles of its foes and figures out how to defeat them, giving Zeus the advantage. What Real Steel gets wrong, Bagnell says, is the remote control. Operators in the film use fight decks to pilot the robots, but most state-of-the-art bots are autonomous. &amp;quot;People give them a task, and they figure out how to do it,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;For a boxing robot, you&amp;#039;d need some level of autonomy\u2014a person couldn&amp;#039;t control every joint at once.&amp;quot; Though sparring robots may seem far-fetched now, &amp;quot;10 years is a long time,&amp;quot; Bagnell says. &amp;quot;Nothing in the film seems wildly unreasonable.&amp;quot; So, there&amp;#039;s your answer, Hugh. (You don&amp;#039;t mind if we call you Hugh, do you?) We&amp;#039;re glad you asked.       "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a7244/how-real-are-real-steels-boxing-robots/>