Development Of A Pingpong Robot System Using 7 Degrees Of Freedom Direct Drive Arm

Abstract

A pingpong robot system using a 7 degrees of freedom direct drive arm has been developed. This system is composed of a binocular camera for measuring the position and the speed of a pingpong ball, a pitching machine, a direct drive robot, and a controller with a multi-microcomputer system. Three important techniques have been developed here. First involves the fast ball position measurement technique using the binocular camera, which has two linear sensors located horizontally on the focal plane of each lens. Second is a technique for forecasting hitting position and time. Third, direct drive robot control technique with real time calculation of inverse kinematics. These techniques are essential to perform unstructured tasks with a robot in real time.