TW202207182A - Interactive court system - Google Patents

Abstract

An interactive court system includes a portable motion sensor, a remote controller, and at least a serving machine. The portable motion sensor is suitable to be carried by a user when hitting a ball, and used to sense a hitting action of the user to obtain the hitting action information. The remote controller receives the hitting action information transmitted by the portable motion sensor, and converts the hitting action information into a control command. The serving machine receives the control command from the remote controller, and simulates a return stroke of an opponent according to the control command, and then serves according to the return stroke to achieve the function of human-machine interaction.

Description

Interactive court system

The present invention relates to a court system for simulation training, in particular to a court system that can interact with users by combining the technology of the Internet of Things.

Badminton or tennis are sports that require a two-way sparring. In traditional training for this type of sport, the coach usually feeds the balls to the players one by one for practice. However, such a practice method not only makes the coach unable to concentrate on checking whether the posture of the players is standard, but also cannot correct the posture of the players in real time.

Therefore, many athletes today use a ball machine (also called a pitching machine, a throwing machine, a ball throwing machine, etc.) to practice the movement of two-way sparring. Typically these servers are placed on the opposite end of the court from the players practicing. The desired trajectory of the serve is manually set by the player directly on the server or with the aid of a remote control. Then, shoot the ball from the server to the player for practice hitting. Such servers typically utilize pneumatic, rotating wheels and/or spring force to deliver shuttlecocks or other types of balls.

Since ball machines have been in use for many years, there have been many improvements in ball machine technology. For example, more advanced ball machines offer more ways to control the trajectory of the ball to provide side-to-side pitch variation as well as up and down pitch variation.

Some servers already offer some degree of pre-programming and storage of the trajectories and sequences of serve that the player wishes to return to practice. When programmed in this way, the server will serve the player with a pre-programmed serve trajectory and serve sequence.

In addition, some currently used ball machines also allow the user to adjust the interval time of the ball, so that the ball machine can automatically serve the ball according to the set interval time. For example, if the ball machine is set to fast, a shot can be fired every two seconds. Also, if the speed of the ball machine is set low, there will be a longer time between shots.

Although the problem that a single player cannot play two-way sparring can be solved through the ball machine, the ball machine on the market is still not humanized enough. In addition to the need to adjust the rate, frequency and angle step by step, it has disadvantages such as being unable to access the Internet and unable to simulate battles. The more important problem is that it can only serve randomly or according to the set interval.

Therefore, currently commercially available ball machines cannot really replace coaches. The reason is that it cannot obtain real-time batting information of players, nor can it dynamically control the timing of serving and the landing point after serving.

One object of the present invention is to provide an interactive court system, which can dynamically control the timing of serving and the landing point after serving according to the user's batting action information.

One object of the present invention is to provide an interactive court system, which can support the function of connecting multiple ball machines and increase the variation of the return stroke.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an interactive court system, including a portable motion sensor, a remote control and at least one ball server. The portable motion sensor can be carried by a user when hitting the ball. For example, the portable motion sensor can be installed on a racket for the user to hold when hitting the ball, and used for sensing The user's batting action is used to obtain a batting action information. The remote controller receives the information of the batting motion from the portable motion sensor, and converts the information of the batting motion into a control command. The ball machine receives the control command from the remote controller, simulates a return stroke of one of the user's opponents according to the control command, and then serves to return the ball accordingly.

In one embodiment, the number of ball servers is plural, and the plurality of ball servers communicate with each other through a remote controller to determine an appropriate return path and a serving order. When each ball machine serves continuously and independently, there is a first time interval between every two consecutive balls. When the plurality of ball servers serve in turn, there is a second time interval between every two consecutive servings, and the second time interval is smaller than the first time interval.

In one embodiment, the portable motion sensor includes two or three-axis accelerometers, and the two or three-axis accelerometers respectively have different acceleration measurement ranges for sensing two different acceleration values. In addition to the two acceleration values, the hitting motion information that can be sensed by the portable motion sensor also includes a hitting time point and a direction sensing value.

In one embodiment, the above-mentioned interactive golf course system further includes an image sensor, which records a dynamic shot image of the user, and transmits the dynamic shot image to the remote control, and the remote control predicts the use of the ball according to the dynamic shot image. One of them hits the ball path. In addition, the image sensor can also track a hitting position of the user in a court according to the dynamic shot image, and track the landing point of a hitting shot of the user.

In one embodiment, the remote controller analyzes the information of the hitting motion transmitted by the portable motion sensor to determine a type of ball, such as a smash, a pick, a flat or a long ball.

In the present invention, the information of the batting action is converted into a control command through the remote controller and transmitted to the ball machine. When the ball machine receives the control command, it selects the appropriate ball path to hit back, so as to achieve the function of human-machine interaction, so that the user is not just catching the ball, but experiencing the feeling of interacting with the machine. In addition, the present invention also combines the concept of the Internet of Things to provide the function of connecting multiple ball machines. After calculating the ideal ball position, the ball machines can communicate with each other to select the most appropriate ball machine to serve, so that the ball is sent out. More realistic, to improve the training efficiency of players.

The foregoing and other technical contents, features and effects of the present invention will be clearly presented in the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment with reference to the drawings. The directional terms mentioned in the following embodiments, such as: up, down, left, right, front or rear, etc., are only used to refer to the directions of the accompanying drawings. Therefore, these directional terms are only used to illustrate and not to limit the present invention.

FIG. 1 shows an interactive court system 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention, including a remote controller 110 , a portable motion sensor 120 , a plurality of ball servers 130A, 130B, 130C, and an image sensor 140 . The portable motion sensor 120 , the plurality of ball machines 130A, 130B, 130C and the image sensor 140 all communicate with the remote controller 110 using wireless communication technology. In one embodiment, the remote controller 110 is, for example, a smart phone, which contains an application program, which can analyze the information provided by the portable motion sensor 120 and the image sensor 140, and provide the ball machines 130A, 130B, Various control flows required by the 130C. The portable motion sensor 120 includes an inertial sensor. The image sensor 140 is, for example, a camera, and is used to capture a picture of a court, so as to track the user's position and the trajectory of the ball, and assist in identifying the user's movements. The portable motion sensor 120 communicates with the remote controller 110 through Bluetooth technology. The ball machines 130A, 130B, 130C and the image sensor 140 can communicate with the remote controller 110 through a WiFi sharing device 150 .

The portable motion sensor 120 is disposed on a user, such as mounted on the racket held by the user or directly worn on the user's hand, to sense the user's hitting motion to obtain a shot Action information. The remote controller 110 receives the batting motion information transmitted from the portable motion sensor 120, and converts the batting motion information into a control command. The ball machines 130A, 130B, and 130C receive the control instructions from the remote controller 110, and simulate a return stroke of one of the users' opponents according to the control instructions, and then serve and return the ball accordingly. The image sensor 140 records a dynamic shot image of the user, and transmits the dynamic shot image to the remote controller 110 . The location of a hit on the course and where it hits the ball.

FIG. 1A is a functional block diagram of the portable motion sensor 120 . The portable motion sensor 120 includes two triaxial accelerometers 121 and 122 , and a triaxial gyroscope 123 electrically connected to a microcontroller 124 and a Bluetooth module 125 , respectively. Two triaxial accelerometers 121 and 122 are used to measure two acceleration values. The acceleration measurement ranges of the two three-axis accelerometers 121 and 122 are different. The larger measurement range is used to detect the main hitting action, and the smaller measurement range is used to detect the subtle body movements accompanying the swing. . For example, the acceleration measurement range of the triaxial accelerometer 121 can be ±16g, and the acceleration measurement range of the triaxial accelerometer 122 can be ±200g. The three-axis gyroscope 123 is used to measure a direction sensing value. The microcontroller 124 can record the timing of a shot. The hitting time point, the two acceleration values and the direction sensing values are packaged into one hitting action information and transmitted to the remote controller 110 through the Bluetooth module.

FIG. 1B is a schematic diagram of the hardware structure of the ball machines 130A, 130B, and 130C. The ball machines 130A, 130B, and 130C include a main control board 131 and a motor module 132 . The main control board 131 includes a WiFi module 1311 , a micro-control unit 1312 and a driving board 1313 . The motor module 132 includes a conveyor belt motor 1321 , a barrel motor 1322 , a ball clamping motor 1323 , a ball ejecting motor 1324 , a vertical motor 1325 and a horizontal motor 1326 . The ball machine 130A, 130B or 130C is controlled by the micro control unit 1312 in the main control board 131, and communicates with the motor driving board 1313 through serial communication. The external Wi-Fi module 1311 is used to remotely receive commands from the mobile phone, and the micro-control unit 1312 decodes the received commands, and then controls the motor module 132 to send the shuttlecock through the drive board 1313 to achieve the function of simulating various ball paths. In addition, the present invention also provides the function of connecting multiple ball machines 130A, 130B or 130C, and through the WiFi sharing device 150 connection, the multiple ball machines 130A, 130B or 130C can communicate with each other about the order of balls. Compared with the situation in which a single ball machine serves continuously and independently, the interactive ball court system 100 can reduce the time interval between every two consecutive balls and increase the variety of return shots by using multiple ball machines 130A, 130B or 130C to serve in turn. .

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of the ball-hit detection algorithm (S20-S24). Firstly, the acceleration value is used in the micro-controller 124 to perform a ball-shot detection algorithm. For example, a threshold is set; the acceleration value is input into the ball-hitting detection algorithm (S21) for differentiation (S22), and then it is determined whether the acceleration value is greater than the threshold (S23). If it exceeds the threshold, it is determined that the ball has been hit. If the ball is hit, then through the Bluetooth module 125, the hitting action information such as the hitting time point, the two acceleration values, and the direction sensing value are packaged into a data packet and then transmitted to the remote controller 110 for signal processing and action recognition (S24). Otherwise end directly.

FIG. 3 is the motion recognition process ( S30 - S36 ) executed by the remote controller 110 . The remote control 110 includes a training model. When the remote controller 110 receives the raw data ( S31 ), it performs signal processing ( S32 ) to extract the information of the hitting action related to the return ball path. For example, if the weight of the racket is known, the detected acceleration value and The direction sensing value calculates the magnitude and direction of the force applied by the user when hitting, according to which the return ball path of the ball server 130A, 130B or 130C can be selected. Then, the batting action information is subjected to feature value calculation (S33) to generate a feature value. Next, the feature value is input into the training model and compared with the trained feature data to determine what type of action is (S35), and finally a classification result is obtained (S36). When the classification result needs to be obtained immediately, the feature value can also be directly used to determine the action type (S35) without training the model (S34).

It is worth mentioning that when judging the type of batting action, taking several pieces of data before and after the batting time to judge the type of action can increase the accuracy. In addition, the time of hitting the ball can also be used as the reference point of the serving time of the ball machine 130A, 130B or 130C, for example, there is an effect of re-serving the ball or increasing the interaction effect.

FIG. 4 is a flow ( S40 - S44 ) of setting a service landing point and a ball type according to an embodiment. The remote controller 110 analyzes the hitting motion information transmitted from the portable motion sensor 120 to generate a classification result of the hitting motion type, which is used to determine a serve landing point (S41) and a ball type (S42), for example: kill ball, pick, flat or long ball. After the remote controller 110 selects the serving location and the ball type, the ball machine 130A, 130B or 130C is notified, and the ball machine 130A, 130B or 130C will set parameters by itself ( S43 ) to determine whether to serve ( S43 ). If so, serve; otherwise, reset.

In one embodiment, the remote controller 110 can also directly transmit the classification result of the hitting action type to the ball machine 130A, 130B or 130C, and then the ball machine 130A, 130B or 130C selects the ball landing point and the ball type. The serve landing point is mainly determined based on the information obtained by the portable motion sensor 120 or the classification result of the hitting action type by the remote controller 110, and the image sensor 140 is used to assist in determining the serving landing position, so as to increase the Accuracy. After the service landing point is determined, the direction and trajectory of the return ball path and which ball server 130A, 130B or 130C will serve can be determined according to the position of the landing point.

Figure 5 shows the connection control flow of multiple ball machines (S50~S592). The plurality of ball servers in this embodiment can communicate with each other through a remote controller, so as to determine an appropriate return path and a serving order. The N ball machines are connected to the remote controller 110 (S51), and the remote controller 110 confirms that at least two ball machines are connected (S52). Assuming that k balls need to be served in total (S53), select the No. 1 ball machine (i=1) (S54) and set its parameters (S55), then send a ball (S56), calculate the remaining balls k (S57), and judge Whether k is equal to 0 (S58), if so, end, otherwise wait for T/N seconds (T: time interval required by each ball machine) (S59). Next, select the next No. i ball machine (S591), and judge whether i is greater than the total number of connected machines N (S592), if so, return to the No. 1 ball machine to set its parameters and then serve (S54~S56), Otherwise, set the i-th ball machine parameters and then serve (S55~S56). Generally, when a single ball machine is serving consecutive balls alone, it takes about 1.3 seconds after each ball to serve the next ball. If the connection control process of multiple ball servers in this embodiment is used, then N ball servers can take turns to serve a ball every 1.3/N seconds, so that the time interval between every two consecutive balls is smaller than that of a single ball server alone. required time interval. In other words, the user can also adjust the waiting time for the next ball by changing the number of connected ball machines.

In one embodiment, when each ball server 130A, 130B, 130C serves a fixed position, it can be determined which one is the No. 1 ball server according to the information obtained by the portable motion sensor 120 . For example: No. 1 ball machine can serve a smash, No. 2 ball machine can serve a pick ball. When the portable motion sensor 120 determines that the user has sent a smash, the ball machine No. 2 will send a pick. When the portable motion sensor 120 determines that the user has made a pick, the ball machine No. 1 will send a smash, which seems to have an interactive sparring effect.

The embodiments of FIGS. 6 to 8 use the image sensor 140 to record the dynamic hitting posture of the user, and transmit the data to the application program of the remote control 110 through Wi-Fi for analysis, so as to predict the hitting of the user. The path can also track the user's position on the golf course and where he hits the ball. In other words, the image sensor 140 has two functions, one is to determine where the user has hit in the past, and the other is to determine the current position of the user on the court, and let the application of the remote control 110 decide which position to use. The ball machines 130A, 130B and 130C return the ball.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a ball path prediction process (S60-S63). The remote controller 110 can predict the flight direction of the ball according to the position and flight path of the ball through computer vision. Use the image sensor 140 to capture a real-time stadium image (S61), compare the front and rear images, and track whether there is a moving ball (S62). If so, the remote controller 110 predicts the trajectory of the shuttlecock and ends (S63); otherwise, the image sensor 140 re-captures the next frame of the court image (S61). In one embodiment, a microprocessor may be disposed inside the image sensor 140 to process part of the image data before transmitting it to the remote controller 110 .

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of the user position tracking process ( S70 - S74 ). First, use the image sensor 140 to select a region of interest in the court (S71), and find the user (S72), for example, find the right toe to determine the target player (S73). If so, the process ends after retrieving the player's current position (S74); otherwise, it returns to search for the user (S72).

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of the tracking process (S80-S84) of the position of the ball landing point. Determine the flying direction of the ball according to the position of the shuttlecock and the flight path through computer vision, use the camera to capture real-time court images (S81), compare the front and rear images and track whether there is a moving backside of the ball (S82), and determine whether the shuttlecock lands (S83). ), if so, the end is obtained after the landing position of the shuttlecock is obtained (S84); otherwise, the court picture of the next frame is re-captured and the moving ball is searched (S81~S82).

To sum up, the interactive golf course system of the present invention can be remotely controlled through an application program of a smart phone. The smart phone provides a set of algorithms, which can identify each ball type according to the information of the portable motion sensor 120 . After judging the ball type, the smart phone uses the portable motion sensor to capture the motion signal of the swing and analyze it. Then, the detailed batting action information of each batting time point is displayed through the mobile phone application, and the batting action information is converted into control commands and sent to the ball machine. When the ball machine receives the control command, it selects the appropriate ball path to hit back, so as to achieve the function of human-machine interaction, so that the user is not just catching the ball, but experiencing the feeling of interacting with the machine.

In addition, the present invention combines the concept of the Internet of Things to provide the function of connecting multiple ball machines. After calculating the ideal ball position, the ball machines communicate with each other to select the most appropriate ball machine to serve, so that the ball machine can be sent out. The ball path is more realistic, so as to improve the training efficiency of players.

However, the above are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and should not limit the scope of the present invention, that is, any simple equivalent changes and modifications made according to the scope of the patent application of the present invention and the contents of the description of the invention, All still fall within the scope of the patent of the present invention. In addition, it is not necessary for any embodiment of the present invention or the claimed scope of the present invention to achieve all of the objects or advantages or features disclosed in the present invention. In addition, the abstract section and the title are only used to aid the search of patent documents and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.

100: Interactive pitch system 110: Remote control 120: Portable motion sensor 121, 122: Three-axis accelerometer 123: Three-axis gyroscope 124: Microcontroller 125:Bluetooth module 130A, 130B, 130C: Ball machine 131: main control board 1311: WiFi Module 1312: Micro Control Unit 1313: Driver board 132: Motor Module 1321: Conveyor Motor 1322: drum motor 1323: Ball Clamp Motor 1324: Ball motor 1325: Vertical Motor 1326: Horizontal Motor 140: Image sensor 150: WiFi Sharer (S20~S24): Algorithm flow of hitting detection (S30~S36): Action recognition process (S40~S44): The setting process of service landing point and ball type (S50~S592): Connection control process of multiple ball machines (S60~S63): Ball path prediction process (S70~S74): User location tracking process (S80~S84): Ball drop position tracking process

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an interactive stadium system architecture according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 1A is a functional block diagram of a portable motion sensor according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 1B is a schematic diagram of a hardware structure of a ball machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic flowchart of a shot detection algorithm according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of an action recognition process performed by a remote controller according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a flow chart of setting a service landing point and a ball type according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a connection control flow of multiple ball servers according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic flow chart of a ball path prediction according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a user location tracking process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a process flow of tracking the position of a ball landing point according to an embodiment of the present invention.

100: Interactive pitch system

110: Remote control

120: Portable motion sensor

130A, 130B, 130C: Ball machine

140: Image sensor

150: WiFi Sharer

Claims (10)

An interactive court system comprising: a portable motion sensor, which can be carried by a user when hitting a ball, and is used for sensing the hitting motion of the user to obtain a hitting motion information; a remote controller for receiving the ball-batting action information from the portable action sensor, and converting the ball-batting action information into a control command; and At least one ball server receives the control command from the remote controller, simulates a return stroke of one of the user's opponents according to the control command, and then serves and returns the ball accordingly. The interactive court system according to claim 1, wherein the number of the ball machines is plural, and the plurality of ball machines communicate with each other through the remote controller to determine an appropriate return path. The interactive court system according to claim 1, wherein the number of the ball servers is plural, and the plurality of ball servers communicate with each other through the remote controller to determine a serving order. The interactive court system according to claim 1, wherein the number of the ball machines is plural, and when each of the ball machines continuously serves the ball independently, there is a first time interval between every two consecutive balls, wherein when the plurality of ball machines When the ball machine serves the ball in turn, there is a second time interval between every two consecutive balls, and the second time interval is smaller than the first time interval. The interactive golf course system according to claim 1, wherein the hitting motion information sensed by the portable motion sensor includes a hitting time point, two acceleration values and a direction sensing value. The interactive stadium system of claim 1, wherein the portable motion sensor includes two or three axis accelerometers, and the two or three axis accelerometers have different acceleration measurement ranges respectively. The interactive court system of claim 1, wherein the portable motion sensor is mounted on a racket for the user to hold when hitting the ball. The interactive golf course system according to claim 1, further comprising an image sensor for generating image information for controlling the ball machine. The interactive golf course system of claim 8, wherein the image sensor records a dynamic shot image of the user, and transmits the dynamic shot image to the remote controller, and the remote control responds to the dynamic shot The image predicts the path of one of the users hitting the ball. The interactive golf course system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the image sensor tracks a hitting point of the user and a hitting position of the user on a golf course according to the dynamic hitting image.

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