Traveling Ball Collector Position Tracking for Accurate Pickup Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing ball collectors face challenges in accurately determining the position of collected balls on the ground, leading to errors in ball density distribution information due to the movement of the collector between ball pickup and detection by the sensor.
Innovation Solution
A traveling collector equipped with a controller that uses GPS positioning and movement distance/time calculations to determine the actual position of ball pickup, allowing for accurate storage and efficient collection operations without significant hardware changes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If GPS positioning is used to detect the position of the traveling collector, then the position information can be acquired, but the actual position where each ball was picked up cannot be accurately determined due to collector movement between pickup and detection
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by recording the GPS position at the moment of ball pickup (when the count sensor detects the ball) rather than at the moment of detection. This preliminary position recording ensures that the position information corresponds to the actual pickup location, not the later detection location when the collector has moved.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses feedback by continuously monitoring the relationship between ball pickup events (detected by count sensor) and GPS position data. The controller correlates the timing of ball detection with position acquisition, using this feedback loop to ensure accurate position tracking for each collected ball.
2Productivity
If a count sensor is used to detect balls, then the number of collected balls can be counted, but the position information becomes inaccurate because the collector moves between pickup and detection
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges the ball detection function (count sensor) with the position recording function (GPS receiver) by having the controller simultaneously process both signals. When the count sensor detects a ball, the controller immediately records the current GPS position, combining these two functions into a unified position-tracking mechanism.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary action by recording the GPS position at the moment of ball pickup (when the count sensor detects the ball) rather than at the moment of detection. This preliminary position recording ensures that the position information corresponds to the actual pickup location, not the later detection location when the collector has moved.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables precise determination of ball positions, improving the accuracy of ball density distribution maps and enhancing the efficiency of ball collection operations.
Implementation Method 1
a GPS receiver for receiving a positioning signal from a satellite of a satellite positioning system
Data Source
AI summary
To provide a highly reliable, cost-effective traveling collector that can determine the positions of fallen objects, such as balls, on the ground using a simple method, or determine the correct positions of fallen objects, such as balls, on the ground only by improving software and without the need for significant changes to hardware. The traveling collector includes a count sensor as a sensor for detecting the position of each collected ball at a position detected by a satellite positioning system, for example. A controller determines a position, which is obtained by reflecting, based on the positional information on the ball collector at a time point when the ball was counted by touching the count sensor, the movement distance of the ball collector from the time each ball was picked up from the ground by a ball collection wheel till the ball was counted by touching the count sensor in a direction opposite to the traveling direction of the ball collector at that time, as the actual position where each ball was picked up.