Design and Implementation of a Robotic Ping-Pong Server System

A robotic Ping-Pong server system could play an important role in skill training for players. Current available systems in the market provides different modes with rough control of the ball landing point. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a robotic Ping-Pong server system to achieve precise ball landing point. A cost-effective multimodal landing point detection system is proposed to detect the landing point by fusing video and audio signals. A lookup table is used to relate the server launching parameters with the landing points. To keep the lookup table dynamic, an iterative learning control (ILC) algorithm is adopted to automatically update the lookup table in case of environmental changes. The ILC algorithm is tested and validated in simulation. Results showed the system was able to precisely serve the ball to the desired point automatically.