Ball boys meet their match

13 March 2002 News

While thousands of ball boys may be dreaming of assisting at tennis star Anna Kournakova's matches, a more sophisticated solution may already have made them redundant. Through the interaction of mechanics, electronics and software, this tennis ball collection robot can identify objects, locate and collect them and then return to a central point to fire them back out. The animated ball boy was developed at Roke Manor Research, UK and demonstrates how robotics and image processing can be combined. Inventor Nicholas Lee (in the photograph) points out that the robot can also be used for more community-oriented tasks such as litter collection or as the basis for a vacuum-cleaning robot.

www.siemens.com

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