Development of a golf robot for simulating individual golfer’s swings

Golf robots are widely used by manufacturers for equipment testing as players are inconsistent and fatigue. Traditional golf swing robots have a ‘standard’ swing profile yet every golfer swings a club differently and needs equipment customised for their swing to perform optimally. Therefore, a robot is needed that can replicate different golfers’ swings to improve the development of customised equipment. This paper details the evaluation of a golf robot developed to enable biomechanical data measured from a golfer’s swing to be used to program the robot to recreate that swing. The angular motions of different golfers were accurately replicated by the robot although differences were observed in the shaft loading between golfers and the corresponding simulation.