Ballbot: A Low-Cost, Open-Source, Open-Design Robot for Tennis Ball Retrieval

In this paper we present an open robotic platform which is targeted to perform the task of a tennis ball boy. Our platform can localize itself and navigate on a tennis court. It can also localize tennis balls lying on the court. It is self-contained with on-board sensing and computation, uses only cost-effective off-the-shelf components, and was designed with an eye for robustness and repeatability in real-world environments. This paper describes our system, presents our first set of experimental results, and discusses some of the challenges faced.