Examination of human ball catching strategy through autonomous mobile robot

In this paper, we examine the human ball catching strategy called LOT (linear optical trajectory) that had been proposed in the field of human behavior through an autonomous mobile robot. LOT is a model of the motion strategy that explains the rationality of the running path of outfielder in catching the balls. However, this model does not provide concrete shape about how fielders decide the running direction and velocity according to the ever-changing position of balls. We consider the ball catching task by an autonomous mobile robot and derive a visual feedback control method based on LOT. We also demonstrate that the proposed method enables the mobile robot to catch the balls that fly in three-dimensional space only by using the monocular vision system.