A Study on Bound Behavior of Service Ball and Development of Four Rollers Type Table Tennis Machine

Abstract

It is difficult to shoot a ball of high speeds with horizontal and gyroscopic spins for a currently commercial table tennis robot (table tennis machine). In this study, the table tennis machine which can shoot the ball of various shot types (loop, smash, drive, knuckle, chiquita, etc.) was developed. The machine has two launch and two gyro rollers, and the rotation direction and the revolutions of the four rollers are controlled independently. From the results of the shot experiments, the machine has high performance to shoot the balls of assorted spin types (top, back, side and gyro spins) with the maximum spin rate (over 10,000 rpm) and the maximum speeds 43.1 m/s (155 km/h). Moreover, the bound behavior in the service was simulated using finite element models of the ball and table for a table tennis. From the results of the bound simulations, it was found that the change amount in the reflection angle of the gyro spin ball was larger and the rebound speed of the top spin ball was increased.