Meet ESTHER, your new tennis-playing robot partner

Your search for a practice partner will never end in vain, should Georgia Tech professor of robotics Matthew Gombolay have his way.

For the last two years, Gombolay has put his expertise to work on a passion project: a tennis-playing robot called ESTHER that mimics the movements and strokes of a human, going beyond the traditional ball machine as a training tool. A passionate recreational tennis player, Gombolay had long been playing with the idea of how a robot might be able to assist a player in developing their tennis skills.

Thus, ESTHER was born, and the name is fitting in many ways. As he began the research for his project, Gombolay discovered that the movements of wheelchair tennis could be most easily replicated by a robot. ESTHER is an acronym for Experimental Sport Tennis Wheelchair Robot, and a tribute to Hall of Fame wheelchair tennis player Esther Vergeer.

ESTHER has a racquet connected to a single, robotic arm, and is able to cover both ends of a tennis court on wheels.