Modelling and simulation for table tennis referee regulation based on finite state machine

As referee’s decisions are made artificially in traditional table tennis matches, many factors in a match, such as fatigue and subjective tendency, may lead to unjust decision. Based on finite state machine (FSM), this paper presents a model for table tennis referee regulation to substitute manual decisions. In this model, the trajectory of the ball is recorded through a binocular visual system while the complete rules extracted from the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) rules are described based on FSM. The final decision for the competition is made based on expert system theory. Simulation result shows that the proposed model has high accuracy, and can be generalised to other similar games such as badminton, volleyball, etc.