Volleyball Robot: From Coach Tosses to ABB Arms

A volleyball robot can set the same ball to the same spot a hundred times in a row, or slide along the net to block a hitter the way an opponent would. This post starts with how players trained before any machine existed, when a coach or teammate tossed every ball by hand. Then it looks at the serve and setting machines that clubs still buy and the robotic blocker built for Japan's national team. It ends with a student-built setting robot from 2026, where ABB robots such as the IRB 1200 and GoFa could plausibly fit, and what still holds this kind of training back.

Three Air Force Academy players block together at the net during a match in Colorado, 2007. Photo: Mike Kaplan / U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

From Morgan's mintonette to the coach with a ball cart

Volleyball began in 1895, when William G. Morgan, the physical education director at the YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts, invented a gentler indoor game for older members and businessmen. He first called it mintonette, borrowing from badminton. For its first years nobody needed a training machine, because the ball was simply patted back over the net. By 1916, players in the Philippines had introduced the set and spike: one player lofts the ball high near the net and another jumps and hits it down hard. From then on teams had to practise timing, and that took someone to feed the ball.

William G. Morgan, who invented volleyball at the Holyoke YMCA in 1895, in an early studio portrait. Photo: Unknown photographer via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

For most of the twentieth century the feeder was a person. Coaches stood on a box at the net to toss or hit balls at defenders, setters fed hitters until their fingers were sore, and a cart of balls sat beside them. Volleyball joined the Olympic programme at Tokyo 1964, where Japan's women took gold, and the top teams of that time ran long, hard drill sessions entirely by hand. It worked, but it tied up a coach for hours, and nobody can toss the same ball to the same spot all afternoon.

Japan and the Soviet Union in the women's volleyball final at the Tokyo Olympics, October 1964. Photo: Asahi Shimbun via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Machines took over the repetitive part. Sports Attack, an American ball machine maker, says it designed its volleyball machines with coaches, and that the jump serve changed the brief: a machine now had to release the ball from above the net with real speed, topspin or float, instead of just lobbing it. Its design raises the throwing head on a tilted mast with a platform for the operator, and a dual-axis head lets the operator change ball placement between throws. In 2017 the Japan Volleyball Association went further with a block machine built with the University of Tsukuba, which slides three pairs of robotic arms along the net to copy an opponent's blockers.

A US player spikes past two blockers at the Military World Games in Hyderabad, 2007. Photo: U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Setting robots and robot blockers today

The newest projects try to replace the setter, the hardest role to copy. In August 2026 the University of Waterloo reported that Team Onset, four recent mechanical and mechatronics engineering graduates, had won an award at the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering's national design competition for a robot that helps train professional players and teams. It delivers repeatable, game-like sets, so a hitter can work on approach and timing without a teammate feeding the ball. The team also took the department's Most Innovative Project Award. The university's report does not explain how the setting mechanism works.

A jump serve, the hard, high serve that ball machines now have to copy. Photo: pjt56 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Tsukuba block machine shows what a robot blocker has to do. A French report from 2017 said it was programmed before each session, could replay sequences from past matches or imitate a rival team's blocking style, and moved along the net at up to 3.7 metres per second. It was due to be shown at the ICRA robotics conference in Singapore that year, and VolleyMob reported that Japan's national team tested it and liked it. Ball machines, meanwhile, have become normal kit in clubs and colleges, although they still stay in one spot and need a person to load them.

Italy warms up at the 2026 Men's European Volleyball Championship in Turin, September 2026. Photo: Dispe / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

ABB does not make a volleyball robot, and none of the machines above use ABB hardware. Some parts of the job do look like work its robots already do. A compact six-axis arm like the IRB 1200 repeats the same path very precisely, so a lab could use one to test balls or to feed sets at a fixed height. A blocker running along the net resembles a robot on a linear track, which ABB controllers handle as external axes. Engineers would plan a cell like that in RobotStudio first. Both ideas are possibilities; neither exists as a volleyball project today.

The new generation ABB IRB 1200, a compact six axis arm for fast, repeatable small part work. Photo: ABB

Where volleyball robots go next

For clubs and families, the likely next step is a setting machine that adjusts itself: cameras track the hitter's approach, the machine changes the height and tempo of the set, and each attempt is logged on a phone. Similar products are already on sale for other ball sports, as our posts on the tennis robot and the badminton robot describe. A cobot such as ABB's GoFa CRB 15000, which has torque sensors in its joints and stops when it feels contact, could be one way to put an arm near players, though nobody sells one for volleyball.

Moving an ABB GoFa arm by hand; torque sensors in its joints let it feel contact. Photo: ABB

Safety is harder in volleyball than in most sports, because players jump at the net and land close to whatever stands there. A robot blocker with moving arms at net height has to sense a hitter coming down and get out of the way. Factories manage similar risks by monitoring speed and separation, for example with ABB's SafeMove, and by limiting a robot's force when people share its space. Cost is the other problem. The Tsukuba machine was a research build for a national federation, and few clubs could buy or maintain one.

The ABB Flexley Mover P604, a mobile robot that maps its surroundings with 3D Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

The most likely future is a split of the work. Machines will handle the repetitive feeding, serves for passers, sets for hitters and perhaps moving blocks for attackers, while coaches watch footwork, arm swing and decisions. In factories, industrial arms can help make and test the balls and nets players use. Before a volleyball robot reaches ordinary school gyms, it has to cost far less than a research rig and be safe around players who are jumping at full stretch a metre away.

Japan plays Germany in the men's tournament at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Photo: Daieuxetdailleurs / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

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