Development of an Autonomous Tennis Ball Retriever Robot As an Educational Tool

Over the years, research into robotics has yielded many applications in several sectors such as manufacturing, domestic and sports industries. This paper discusses the development of an autonomous tennis ball retriever robot for the sports sector. The robot was developed with the aim of saving the time and energy of the tennis player from manually collecting the tennis balls after training sessions. The developed autonomous robot is able to retrieve tennis balls by sweeping around the tennis court. The paper discusses the system configuration in terms of mechanical and controller subsystems, the navigation and system performance. The knowledge and experience gained from the development of various sub-systems of the robot is useful for educating the undergraduate students.