Examination of ball tracking and catching task using a monocular vision-based mobile robot

This paper presents an implementation of a ball catching task using a monocular vision-based mobile robot. We have proposed a motion strategy for catching a ball flying in three-dimensional space. This strategy has its roots in the field of experimental psychology but is more powerful and concentrated on a robot. A practical trajectory control law is derived for a non-holonomic mobile robot to track and catch a ball. This control law educes the full potential of the motion strategy: we experimentally demonstrate that a monocular vision-based mobile robot, coping with the problem due to its non-holonomic constraint, successfully catches a ball.