Robotic systems are increasingly used in the field of sports. An example of this are
machines used for tennis training. They are capable of launching balls at preferred
speeds, directions and rotations, which enables tennis players to make faster progress
in their game. Unfortunately, all existing tennis ball launchers are stationary, which
greatly limits the realism of tennis training versus playing with a teammate. The goal
of the master’s thesis is the development of a mobile platform capable of moving and
launching tennis balls throughout the tennis court, and an algorithm that will ensure
robust localization of the mobile platform during movement.
In the master’s thesis, we describe the main mechanical and electronic components
necessary for the development of mobile robots. We describe the most commonly
used processing units and communication protocols that ensure reliable processing
and data transfer. We develop a robotic platform and present its kinematics. We
review the localization literature, ranging from the most basic complementary filter
to the Kalman filter and its derivatives. We describe the process of prototyping and
validating a localization algorithm in the Python programming language. Finally, we
execute test trajectories, present and evaluate the final results.
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