US 6,539,931 · Granted 2003-04-01
The Smart Ball Machine That Reads Your Gestures and Voice
Imagine a robot that throws a ball exactly where you want it—just by watching where you stand, reading your hand signals, and listening to your commands. This patent describes a machine that combines a camera, microphone, and computer brain to figure out the perfect angle, speed, and spin to throw a ball right at you.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a ball-throwing machine that integrates computer vision (camera-based tracking of user position and gestures), speech recognition (vocal command processing), and automatic adjustment of ball trajectory in real time. What's protected here is the specific combination of detecting a user's location and hand signals, receiving voice commands, and then algorithmically computing and executing the precise direction, elevation, speed, and spin needed to throw a ball along a calculated path.
Why it matters
This patent represents an early attempt to merge interactive human-machine interfaces—camera vision, voice control, and mechanical execution—into a single sports device. By the early 2000s, when this was filed, combining these three control modalities in one machine was novel. The patent's value lies in blocking competitors from building similar gesture- and voice-controlled throwing machines without licensing the technology, particularly useful for training, entertainment, or accessible sports applications.
Real-world use
A baseball pitcher in training could stand in front of the machine, call out "high fastball" and point left, and the machine would automatically adjust its aim and throw speed to match that exact request without touching any buttons.
Original USPTO abstract
A ball-throwing machine includes a camera connected to a computer vision unit and a microphone connected to a speech-processing unit. The computer vision unit processes images from the camera to determine a user's position, and to detect user gestures from a predetermined repertoire of gestures. The speech-processing unit recognizes user vocal commands from a predetermined repertoire of commands. A computer receives information from a control panel, from the computer vision unit, from the speech-processing unit, and from a file describing the ballistic properties of the ball to be thrown. The computer accordingly determines a ball trajectory according to the user's position and parameters indicated by a combination of control-panel settings, user gestures, and user vocal commands. The computer then adjusts the direction, elevation, ball speed, and ball spin to conform to the determined trajectory, and initiates throwing of a ball accordingly.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 6,539,931
- Filing date
- 2001-04-16
- Grant date
- 2003-04-01
- Assignee
- Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
- Inventor(s)
- TRAJKOVIC MIROSLAV, COHEN-SOLAL ERIC, GUTTA SRINIVAS
- CPC class
- A63B24/0021
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