Design and Construction of a Vision-Based Golf Simulator

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2014
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Engineering
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
For this project, an affordable computer-vision based golf simulator was designed and constructed. The stroboscopic photography technique was implemented to capture high-speed images of golf balls being struck. The images were processed using code written in MATLAB to determine the initial launch conditions of the golf balls. The initial conditions were used to simulate the golf ball's flight, and the results of the simulation were displayed graphically on a computer monitor in front of the golfer. Our simulator was capable of capturing clear images of golf balls with initial velocities of up to 170 mph and spin rates of 10,000 rpm, and it was also able to accurately predict the carry distance of a golf ball to within twenty percent error. However, the accuracy of the simulation was highly dependent on the quality of the images the system captured: only 29 percent of the attempted simulations captured images that were high enough quality to produce accurate results. Furthermore, our simulator was not able to accurately predict the ball's curvature to the left or to the right due to the fact that we were limited by our budget to using a one-camera system. Ultimately, this project showed that it is possible to design and build an accurate computer-vision based golf simulator with minimal equipment. With a few additions to our system and a small increase in the budget, it would be very feasible to produce an accurate and easy to use computer-vision based golf simulator that is affordable for amateur golfers.
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