Tennis ball retriever robot

Court Bots Inc is now developing a prototype for retrieving tennis balls for singles players. The logic and required sensors must now be progrrammed and tested, respectively. Patent applications have been filed and industry interest has already been received. The retriever will deploy from a standby position adjacent the netpost and be guided by voice command to an approximate ball location where a proximity sensor will lock in to the ball, and then automatically capture and then return the ball to the player or designated court location, after which it returns to the standby position. An orientation sensor determines positions and navigation about the court, preferably not relying on wheel encoders but rather line tracking/crossing with position estimation-correction based on same . This prototype v 4.0 is intended to test out various sensors to hash out design specifications and to provide a basic working model to attract capital financing. We estimate the work should require about 500 hours total.