Ballbot: A Low-Cost Robot for Tennis Ball Retrieval

John Wang

EECS Department
University of California, Berkeley
Technical Report No. UCB/EECS-2012-157
June 2, 2012

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2012/EECS-2012-157.pdf

This paper presents a robotic platform which is targeted to perform the task of a tennis ball boy. This platform is self-contained with on-board sensing and computation, uses only cost-effective off-the-shelf components, and was designed to perform robustly and repeatably in semistructured real-world environments. In particular, this paper presents a particle-filter implementation that allows the robot to localize itself and navigate on a tennis court. Along with navigation and tennis ball detection, this will enable it to pick up tennis balls on a real tennis court. This paper describes our system, presents our initial experimental results, and discusses some of the challenges faced.

Advisor: Pieter Abbeel


BibTeX citation:

@mastersthesis{Wang:EECS-2012-157,
    Author = {Wang, John},
    Title = {Ballbot: A Low-Cost Robot for Tennis Ball Retrieval},
    School = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
    Year = {2012},
    Month = {Jun},
    URL = {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2012/EECS-2012-157.html},
    Number = {UCB/EECS-2012-157},
    Abstract = {This paper presents a robotic platform which is targeted to perform the task of a tennis ball boy. This platform is self-contained with on-board sensing and computation, uses only cost-effective off-the-shelf components, and was designed to perform robustly and repeatably in semistructured real-world environments. In particular, this paper presents a particle-filter implementation that allows the robot to localize itself and navigate on a tennis court. Along with navigation and tennis ball detection, this will enable it to pick up tennis balls on a real tennis court. This paper describes our system, presents our initial experimental results, and discusses some of the challenges faced.}
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Thesis
%A Wang, John
%T Ballbot: A Low-Cost Robot for Tennis Ball Retrieval
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 2012
%8 June 2
%@ UCB/EECS-2012-157
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2012/EECS-2012-157.html
%F Wang:EECS-2012-157