  This paper illustrates how a 3 degrees of freedom, Cartesian robot can be
given the task of playing ping pong against a human player. We present an
algorithm based on particle swarm optimization for the robot to calculate when
and how to hit an approaching ball. Simulation results are shown to depict the
effectiveness of our approach. Although emphasis is placed on sending the ball
to a desired point on the ping pong table, it is shown that our method may be
adjusted to meet the requirements of a variety of ball hitting strategies.
