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Tennis Ball Machine: MIE 301: Design Report
Tennis Ball Machine: MIE 301: Design Report
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
2. Introduction 2
3. Current Mechanism 2
4. Objectives 3
5. Conceptual Design 3
6. Analysis 4
6.1 Determining Required Mechanism Limit Positions: 4
6.1.1 Horizontal Limit Positions: 4
6.1.2 Vertical Limit Positions: 4
6.2 Analysis of Five Bar Mechanism in Generating Random Motion 5
6.3 Analysis of Vertical Motion Mechanism 7
6.4 Determining Required Motor Torque and Power 7
6.5 Combined Output of Four and Five Bar Mechanism 8
6.6 Cost 9
7. Conclusion 9
References 10
2. Introduction
Elite tennis players improve their stroke by working with a high quality tennis ball
machine. Such machines use two or more servos and computerized systems to
control the launch of the ball. A high end tennis ball machine can cost several
thousands of dollars. There is a notable lack of mid-to-low-end tennis machines
which offer adequate functionality for amateur players. This inspired us to reduce the
cost of tennis ball machines by targeting this empty space in the market.
The objective of this report is to produce a design with similar functionality to high
end tennis ball machines, emulating playing with another player, but at a
significantly lower price. The cost reduction will be achieved through the
replacement of expensive computer systems and servos with purely mechanical
systems.
3. Current Mechanism
4. Objectives
To produce a machine that is competitive to current tennis ball machines (eg: Phenom II) these following
objectives should be met:
1. Emulate the functionality of high end tennis ball machines at a significantly reduced price. Proposed
design to cost at most half the price of the Phenom II ($1797.5)
3. Shot coverage of the machine should be able cover a majority (greater than 50%) of of the court. Since
the Phenom II can launch a ball to all point on the court, it is able to have 100% coverage. This will serve
as the upper limit of coverage for the proposed design
4. Be able to shoot the ball in a unpredictable manner such that the player cannot easily predict the
location of the next ball
5. The balls should be evenly distributed over the court, meaning that shots are not concentrated in any
particular area of the court. In other word, the probability of a ball landing on a certain location on the
court should be close to equal for all locations on the court.
5. Conceptual Design
Our proposed design will make use of a five-bar mechanism to
control the motion in the horizontal plane, and a four-bar and slider
mechanism to control motion in the vertical plane. The total output
of these mechanisms determines the angle and direction in which the
tennis balls will be launched.
Projectile range formulas can be used to determine the minimum and maximum limit angles.
A launch speed of 60 km/hr was used since existing tennis ball machines for beginners to
intermediate-level players have a ball ejection speed of 16-80 km/h [3].
The vertical mechanism output must be within 14.6 ° and 26.41 ° to ensure balls stay in the court
6.2 Analysis of Five Bar Mechanism in Generating Random Motion
For the five-bar mechanism, a vector loop analysis was conducted to obtain the equations of motions
which were put into Matlab to obtain the position, velocity, and acceleration of all links. Plotting the
positions over time will validate that the motion is unpredictable. Knowing the accelerations is necessary
for the force analysis which will be conducted afterwards.
Equations of Motion:
Since the five-bar has a mobility of two, that is the mechanism requires two inputs to predict all the
outputs, both motor speeds at θ2 and θ5 must be defined to set the motion of the mechanism. Randomness
can be generated by first setting a constant rotation speed of one motor input. The rotation speed of the
second motor must equal to the first motor’s speed multiplied by an irrational number like π (eg. θ5 = π *
θ2 ). This idea is analogous to a clock that has an hour hand and a minute hand. The motion of the hands
are periodic since one rotation of the minute hand is 601 th of the hour hand. Thus, after 60 rotations of the
minute hand the hour hand rotates once. The minute and hour hands start at the same position and repeats
this cycle periodically, making its motion predictable. However, if one rotation of the minute hand where
to correspond to 1/π rotations of the hour hand the two hands would never align and reset. This is because
π is an irrational number, which by definition cannot be expressed by the ratio of two integers. As a result,
it does not matter how many turns the minute hand does, it will never align with the hour hand in the
starting position,, meaning it is non-periodic.. This property is used to generate non-periodic and
unpredictable motion in the five-bar.
The plot on the left displays the angular position of the output overtime. θ5 is rotating at a rational
multiple to the rotation speed of θ2 ( θ5 = 2 * θ2 in this case). It is evident that the motion is periodic and
predictable.
In the plot on the right, θ5 is now rotating at φ (phi) times the speed of θ2 , where φ is the Golden Ratio,
an irrational number. It can be seen from the plot that the output still follows a general oscillatory motion,
but now no clear period can be defined. This implies that the motion is not periodic and thus difficult to
predict.
By tuning the mechanism parameters, values were determined which allowed the mechanism to operate at
an appropriate speed and within the specified limit positions.
r1 = 2 r2 = 0.25 r3 = 2 r4 = 2 r5 = 0.25
Note: the link lengths above are dimensionless since as long as these ratios are maintained the lengths can
be in any dimension as long as it is consistent.
The additional horizontal lines on the right plot indicate the previously determined limit positions of the
mechanism. The output is shown to be bounded within these limit positions.
It was determined from analytically solving the equations of motion that the output limit positions to were
98.830 and 81.100. Which is within the previously specified limit angles, this agrees with the Matlab
model. Therefore, this mechanism is able to produce random motion, and keep the balls within the court
as specified by the objectives.
6.3 Analysis Vertical Motion Mechanism
The vertical launch angle of the tennis ball is controlled by a
combination of a four-bar and slider-crank (Fig. 11). The input
being a constant rotation of link 2, and the output of the system is
the angular position of link 6 where the launching drums are
mounted.
Vector loops were used to determine the position of output angle θ6
overtime with constant motor input. By adjusting the lengths of
linkages the range of θ6 can be adjusted fit within the previously
determined limit angles, and launched balls will stay within the
court.
r1 = 20 r2 = 4 r3 = 30 r4 = 20 r5 = 22.5 r7 = 22.5
Note: the link lengths are dimensionless above since as long as these ratios are
maintained the lengths can be in any dimension as long as it is consistent.
Note: The links have been made such that all of the balls will land within the 18 ft by 27 ft rectangle
behind the service line. This was done since the the Phenom II’s pre programmed settings are designed to
also launch balls into this area of the court [1].
From the color probability distribution, the design is able to cover approximately 71% of the court area.
6.6 Cost
5 DC motors at $40 dollars each [4]
Assume links made of aluminum alloy, density 2800 kg/m3, at $1.56/kg [5]
Volume of five bar = 0.0012 m3 Volume of 4 bar = 0.0018 m3 Volume to launcher assembly = 0.0008 m3
With the goal of showing the lower cost of the proposed design. the prices in the estimate have been
purposefully overestimated to allow for a stronger conclusion to be drawn from a price comparison.
7. Conclusion
The following chart compares the proposed design to other market options based on how each meets the
previously stated objectives
:
Objective Lobster Phenom II [1] Sports Tutor Twist [7] Proposed Design
The proposed design was able to meet the specified objectives, which are:
3. Should be able to cover a majority (greater than 50%) of the court’s area
Proposed design covers 71% of the court area
5. Evenness of ball distribution; ie. balls are not concentrated on specific sections of the court
Proposed design achieves a fairly even distribution; approx 1% probability difference
between max and min location on the distribution (see section 6.5)
From the analysis in this report, the proposed design is worth consideration as a low cost alternative to
high end tennis ball machines for amaetur players. Further and prototyped would be needed to determine
possible issues outside the scope of analysis in this report. For example, stress analysis to determine
geometry of links and real life testing to gauge user experience.
References
1. "Phenom Two." Lobster Tennis Ball Machines. Lob-ster Inc, n.d. Web. Dec. 2016.
<http://www.lobstersports.com/products/electric-machines/phenom/phenom2.htm>.
2. "Tennis Court Dimensions & Measurements." Www.courtdimensions.net. Explorations Media Group, LLC,
n.d. Web. Dec. 2016. <http://www.courtdimensions.net/tennis-court/index.php>.
4. "12V 5310 RPM "CIM" Brushed DC Motor." RobotShop. Www.robotshop.com, n.d. Web.
<http://www.robotshop.com/ca/en/12v-5310-rpm-cim-brushed-dc-motor.html>.
5. "London Metal Exchange: Aluminium Alloy." L ondon Metal Exchange: Aluminium Alloy. The London
Metal Exchange, n.d. Web. Dec. 2016. <http://www.lme.com/metals/non-ferrous/aluminium-alloy/>.