An application of human robot interaction: development of a ping-pong playing robotic arm

This paper describes the design and development of a ping-pong robotic arm as an application of robotic vision. Displaced frame difference (DFD) is utilized to segment the ball motion from background motion. 3-D ball tracking using parametric calibration of single CCD camera is explained. This visual information is temporally updated and further employed to guide a robot arm to hit the ball at a specified location. The results signify the system development based on single camera tracking. System latency is measured as a function of the camera interface, processor architecture, and robot motion. Various hardware and software parameters that influence the real time system performance are also discussed.