Science & Technology

Robot solves Rubik's Cube in under a second

By T.K. Randall
November 11, 2016

Image: The First Guinness Book of Records
Credit: Whowhooh / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) The quintessentially 80s brain-teaser, which was invented by Hungarian Erno Rubik, has recently enjoyed something of a resurgence due to speedcubing - a competitive sport in which human (or robot) contestants battle it out to solve the puzzle in the fastest time possible.

Now Infineon, a major German semiconductor manufacturer, has raised the bar so high with its latest Rubik's Cube solving robot that it has made it difficult for anyone else to even compete.At the Electronica trade fair in Munich this week the device, known as Sub1 Reloaded, achieved a completion time of just 0.637 seconds. It managed to beat the time of 0.887 seconds set by an earlier revision of the same robot which used a different processor chip.

"It takes tremendous computing power to solve such a highly complex puzzle with a machine," the company wrote in a statement. "In the case of 'Sub1 Reloaded,' the power for motor control was supplied by a microcontroller from Infineon's AURI(tm) family, similar to the one used in driver assistance systems."

Footage of the robot in action can be viewed below.


Source: Live Science

Tags: Rubik's Cube