Design and control of a vertical ball juggling delta robot without visual guidance

In this paper, the design and control of a vertical ball juggling Delta robot is presented. The position and velocity of the ball, factors play an important role during juggling. Quite often these factors are calculated using visual guidance. This paper introduces a control algorithm to juggle the ball vertically in two dimensions (2D) without visual guidance method. Instead of normal visual guidance method, an observer based on the reflection laws is used to get the continuous position and velocity of the ball. The next hitting time and the hitting velocity of the ball are predicted using the projectile motion equations. Three different controllers are designed for the stability and tracking of variable reference height of the ball during juggling and to keep the ball from falling off. The validation of this proposed control algorithm for ball juggling is shown by the simulation and preliminary experimental results.