Design team members: Behrang Assadi, Aly Masud, Mark Meldrum
Supervisor: Professor John S. Zelek
Background
Athletes who wish to develop their skills require suitable practice. A practice environment that closely simulates that of a competitive match will best provide the athlete with the challenges needed for effective skills development. In opponent-based sports, the simulation of an opponent is a key part of simulating match conditions. Specifically, in the game of tennis, such simulations are not offered through currently available tennis ball machines. Thus, there exists a need for a tennis ball machine that more accurately simulates the behaviour of an opponent using artificial intelligence. This can be accomplished if the tennis ball machine uses a decision making process in order to determine where and how the tennis ball should be shot
Project description
An opponent must initially recognize the position of a tennis player before deciding on the type of shot and location to where the ball should be delivered. Similarly, for a tennis ball machine to make such a decision, it requires information regarding the location of the tennis player on the opposite side of the court. This project aims to autonomously determine the location of a tennis player on the court in order to intelligently deliver a specific type of shot to a specific location. It is a new type of tennis ball machine that knows where the player is and shoots the ball based on that knowledge
Design methodology
The tennis ball machine determines the location of the tennis player by using a vision system that incorporates communication between a camera and computer. The computer uses the location information to determine the type of shot and location to where the ball should be delivered and communicates this to a control system; it does this by determining the location on the tennis court where the ball should land. The control system instructs a positioning system composed of a series of motors to maneuver the ball launching system in a specific three-dimensional orientation. The control system then instructs the ball launching system to project the ball to the calculated location on the court at a certain speed.