Patent ID: 11878229
Assignee: OMRON CORPORATION
Field: Furniture, games (Other fields)
Classification: CPC A  G | IPC A

Claim 9:
10. A ball-returning robot, comprising:
a stroke decision device comprising:
an acquisition section configured to acquire state information including a position, a translational velocity, and a rotational velocity of an incoming ball; and
a stroke condition decision section configured to decide a stroke condition including a position, a velocity, and an orientation of a striking implement at a time point of hitting back the ball toward a target arrival position, based on the state information for the ball and the target arrival position when hitting back the ball with the striking implement;

a striking implement configured to hit back an incoming ball;
a movable section configured to support and move the striking implement; and
a control device configured to control movement of the movable section so as to hit back the ball in accordance with a stroke condition decided by the stroke decision device,
wherein the stroke condition decision section includes:
a trajectory prediction section configured to compute trajectory information relating to a predicted trajectory of the incoming ball based on the state information for the ball;
a setting section configured to employ the trajectory information to set a strike position of the ball and to set post-strike state information including a post-strike velocity and a post-strike rotational velocity of the ball immediately after being struck;
an arrival position prediction section configured to compute a predicted arrival position based on the post-strike state information;
an adjustment section configured to adjust the post-strike velocity such that an error between the predicted arrival position and the target arrival position is within a permitted range; and
a stroke condition computation section configured to compute a velocity and an orientation of the striking implement such that the ball will conform to the post-strike state information when the ball conforming to the state information immediately prior to being struck is struck at the strike position.