Robowler: Design and development of a cricket bowling machine ensuring ball seam position

Abstract

The art of cricket bowling is complex and arduous owing to the run-up and ball release time energy requirement to achieve speed and variations. Therefore, human bowlers cannot bowl for extended periods and numerous mechanical bowling machines have been built to help batsmen improve their skills during practice sessions. However, most of these existing machines are designed for spherical balls ignoring the distinguishing physical feature of a cricket ball: the raised equatorial seam, which makes it less of a sphere. The bowlers are known to often benefit from this seam in their pursuit to taking the batsmen’s wicket by imparting swing, spin and bounce variations along-with other bowling variables. This lack of the seam consideration creates a void between human and mechanical bowling. In this work, we present design and development of an automatic bowling machine termed as ROBOWLER to make mechanical bowling more realistic. This machine ensures ball seam position as well as fulfills other constraints. Ball pitching and seam position accuracy results underscore the suitability of this design to enhance the capabilities of mechanical bowling.