Summary:
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Toyota unveils CUE7, AI basketball robot with advanced vision technology and motion control for precision shots.
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CUE7, originally developed from automotive technologies, uses sensors to calculate distance and adjust angle for accurate shots.
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With a Guinness World Record for farthest basketball shot, Toyota’s CUE7 serves as a research platform for vision and motion systems.
Toyota has unveiled CUE7, the latest version of its AI-powered basketball robot, showcasing advances in vision technology, motion control, and humanoid engineering.
Demonstrated at Toyota Arena Tokyo, CUE7 draws on technologies originally developed for controlling automobiles and machinery, applying them to one of the more unexpected arenas in robotics: the basketball court.
Toyota unveils basketball shooting robot with AI vision
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The robot locks onto the hoop, uses sensors to gauge distance, and makes small upper-body adjustments before releasing the ball with controlled force and angle. Shots rise on a high arc and frequently drop through with minimal contact on the rim.
On the hardware side, CUE7 was reduced from 120 kilograms to 74 kilograms and now operates on an inverted two-wheel structure. Its control system combines reinforcement learning with model predictive control to support more dynamic movement.
The project began as an employee side project in 2017 and has since grown into a dedicated research platform. A previous model set a Guinness World Record in December 2024 for the farthest basketball shot by a humanoid robot, at 24.55 meters.
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Toyota positions CUE7 as a test platform rather than a commercial product, using the precision demands of basketball to advance its broader work in vision systems, motion planning, and coordinated movement.
