Gambit: A Robust Chess-Playing Robotic System

This paper presents Gambit, a custom, mid-cost 6DoF robot manipulator system that can play physical board games against human opponents in non-idealized environments. Historically, unconstrained robotic manipulation in board games has often proven to be more challenging than the underlying game reasoning, making it an ideal testbed for small-scale manipulation. The Gambit system includes a low-cost Kinectstyle visual sensor, a custom manipulator, and state-of-the-art learning algorithms for automatic detection and recognition of the board and objects on it. As a use-case, we describe playing chess quickly and accurately with arbitrary, uninstrumented boards and pieces, demonstrating that Gambit’s engineering and design represent a new state-of-the-art in fast, robust tabletop manipulation.