Smart technologies bring innovation to our life and sports arena. To adapt to diverse play styles and improve unconventional technique of table tennis players, we developed a smart table tennis racket with tunable stiffness based on anisotropic electrorheological elastomers (EREs). The EREs were prepared in the designed mold under the electric field to form an anisotropic structure that consisted of electrorheological particles and facilitated the generation of interparticle saturation surface polarization and the local electric field. Therefore, the electrorheological property of anisotropic EREs was significantly promoted, attaining a relative electrorheological effect of 17160% in shear mode, and the incremental shear storage and compression modulus of 5.2 and 6.4 MPa. By applying an electric field, the smart racket successfully changed the trajectory of balls, reduced ejection angle by 11% and increased ejection velocity by 2%.

electrorheological elastomers, anisotropic structure, tunable stiffness, table tennis racket