Quidditch comes to live:-Japanese inventor reveals the HoverBall with a DRONE inside and says it could lead to new sports - and improve existing ones

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It is the dream of Harry Potter fans everywhere - a real life version of Quidditch.

Now a Japanese inventor has made the game a step closer, with a flying ball containing a tiny drone.

He says the ball can be kicked, hit and remotely swerved - and that it will lead to a new generation of cyber sports.

Developed by Jun Rekimoto at the University of Tokyo and colleagues, the plastic ball has the ability to hover thanks to a 90-millimetre-wide drone embedded inside it. 

'Balls are the most popular equipment for sports,' said Rekimoto.

'To play with balls, certain physical methods, or “vocabularies”, such as throwing, hitting, spinning, or kicking have been developed by reflecting the fact that balls obey physical dynamics. 

'While this feature forms the foundation of ball-based sports, we consider it might as well limit the possibility of them.'

The hovering ball could be the first step towards a real life version of the game Quidditch played by Harry Potter

The hoverball, which has a small drone inside allowing it to fly

The team says its HoverBall could democratise some sports, allowing the ball to stop or slow down for older people or children, perhaps.

'For instance, the speed of balls could be too fast for small children, senior people, or people with physical disabilities. 

'In this paper, we propose a flying ball based on the quadcopter technology. 

'This ball has an ability to stay in the air, and change its location and behavior according to the sports game contexts.'

The system would allow game designers to program the ball to react in different ways to a traditional ball - and could even steer itself away from star players to even up teams.

'With this technology, physical dynamics of a ball can be re-programmed by sports designers, and new ball-playing vocabularies, such as hovering, anti-gravity, proximity, or remote manipulation, can be introduced to extend the way people interact with balls.'

'In this paper, we introduce this concept as a method of augmenting sports'.

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