Table Of ContentLecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 7416
Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science
LNAISeriesEditors
RandyGoebel
UniversityofAlberta,Edmonton,Canada
YuzuruTanaka
HokkaidoUniversity,Sapporo,Japan
WolfgangWahlster
DFKIandSaarlandUniversity,Saarbrücken,Germany
LNAIFoundingSeriesEditor
JoergSiekmann
DFKIandSaarlandUniversity,Saarbrücken,Germany
Thomas Röfer N. Michael Mayer
Jesus Savage Uluç Saranlı (Eds.)
RoboCup 2011:
Robot Soccer
World Cup XV
1 3
SeriesEditors
RandyGoebel,UniversityofAlberta,Edmonton,Canada
JörgSiekmann,UniversityofSaarland,Saarbrücken,Germany
WolfgangWahlster,DFKIandUniversityofSaarland,Saarbrücken,Germany
VolumeEditors
ThomasRöfer
DeutschesForschungszentrumfürKünstlicheIntelligenz,Cyber-PhysicalSystems
Enrique-Schmidt-Str.5
28359Bremen,Germany
E-mail:[email protected]
NorbertMichaelMayer
NationalChungChengUniversity,DepartmentofElectricalEngineering
168UniversityRoad
62102Min-Hsiung,Chia-Yi,Taiwan
E-mail:[email protected]
JesusSavage
UniversidadNacionalAutonomadeMexico,Bio-RoboticsLaboratory
CP04250Mexico,D.F.,Mexico
E-mail:[email protected]
UluçSaranlı
MiddleEastTechnicalUniversityAnkara,DepartmentofComputerEngineering
06531Ankara,Turkey
E-mail:[email protected]
ISSN0302-9743 e-ISSN1611-3349
ISBN978-3-642-32059-0 e-ISBN978-3-642-32060-6
DOI10.1007/978-3-642-32060-6
SpringerHeidelbergDordrechtLondonNewYork
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2012942791
CRSubjectClassification(1998):I.2,C.2.4,D.2.7,H.5,I.4,J.4
LNCSSublibrary:SL7–ArtificialIntelligence]
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Preface
Fifteen yearsago,RoboCup started with the vision“By the mid-21st century,a
teamoffully autonomoushumanoidsoccerplayersshallwinthe soccergame[..]
againstthe winner of the most recent World Cup,”a landmark project that has
attractedalargenumberofinternationalresearchersovertheyears,theRoboCup
community.Sincethebeginning,enormousprogresshasbeenmade.RoboCuphas
alsobroadeneditsfocusbyaddressingeducation(RoboCupJunior)aswellasre-
searchfieldsclosertoapplications(RoboCupRescueandRoboCup@Home).
The RoboCup Symposium is the scientific core meeting of the RoboCup
community.While the RoboCupcompetitions anddemonstrationsshowcasethe
effectiveness of the systems in practice, the RoboCup Symposium answers the
question of how they work. Each year the RoboCup Symposium is held on
a different continent. In 2011, with Istanbul playing host, the 15th RoboCup
Symposium became the first to take place on two continents at once.
We decided to organize the Symposium as a single track conference in 2011.
Thegreatadvantageofthisisthatitallowedallparticipantstoattendallsessions
of the symposium. Thus, we blured the classic separation of RoboCup into
the three major areas of soccer, rescue, and service robotics. To further blur
these distinctions, oral presentations in the three sessions were not divided by
particulartopic,butjumpedbetweendifferentareasandleagues. Thisapproach
demonstratedthebreadthanddepthofresearchwithintheRoboCupcommunity
and is reflected by the sequence of the papers in this book.
The consequence of a single-track schedule is that it results in a smaller
number of talks. This was offset by presenting the majority of papers during
two poster sessions, which allowed for greater interactions between presenters
andtheiraudience.Tounderlinethe importanceofthe posterpresentationsand
to make the participants’ choice about which posters to visit more informed,
each poster session was preceded by a plenary presentation of so-called poster
teasers, i.e., micro-talks of one minute and one slide per poster.
Forthe 15thRoboCupSymposium,wereceived97papersubmissions,cover-
ing all areas of RoboCup research. All papers were carefully reviewed by the
International Program Committee. Each submission was examined by three
members of the Program Committee and the final decision was made by the
Co-chairs. Twelve papers were selected for oral presentation and 32 for poster
presentation. The authors J¨org Stu¨ckler and Sven Behnke received the best pa-
per award for their contribution on“Compliant Task-Space Control with Back-
Drivable Servo Actuators.”
The RoboCup Symposium has a long tradition of inviting keynote speakers
from outside the RoboCup community who have made outstanding contribu-
tions in the field of artificial intelligence. The speakers at the RoboCup 2011
Symposium, Luc Steels and Dieter Fox, talked about their ongoing research.
VI Preface
Luc works on language processing and humanoid robots, and asked the ques-
tion“WhenWillThey Startto Speak?”.Dieter discussedthe mosttalked-about
sensorofthe previousyearinhiskeynoteentitled“RGB-DCameras:Challenges
and Opportunities”.
Anothersymposiumtraditionis the paneldiscussion.Incontrasttoprevious
years,where the panelists were usually RoboCupofficials,in 2011the leadersof
someofthe winningteamsdiscussedthe question“WhatDoesItReallyTaketo
Win?”. The goal will be to develop a general perspective on the challenges of
RoboCup built from the insights of the competition winners and their methods
andapproaches.Theywerealsoinvitedtocontributetothisbookwithonepaper
perleague.These“ChampionPapers”werereviewedbymembersofthetechnical
committees of the respective leagues and those accepted start the main part of
this book.
We wantto thank the RoboCupOrganizingCommittee for making the local
arrangements, which worked out very well. In particular we want to thank the
General Chair for RoboCup 2011, H. Levent Akin, and his Co-chairs, C¸etin
Meric¸li and Tekin Meri¸cli. We would also like to thank the organizers of the
previous RoboCup Symposium, who were very helpful and let us benefit from
their experience.Further, we would like to thank all of the ProgramCommittee
members for their hard work and the great job of reviewing they did. Last but
not least, we want to thank all of the authors for their contributions. The next
RoboCup competition will run during June 18–24, 2012, in Mexico City with
the conjoint symposium taking place on June 24.
March 2012 Thomas R¨ofer
Norbert Michael Mayer
Jesus Savage
Uluc¸ Saranlı
RoboCup Leagues in 2011
RoboCup consists of the four main areas RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue,
RoboCup@Home, and RoboCupJunior. Most of these areas are divided into a
number of leagues that address different aspects of their overall research goals.
While RoboCupJunior is presented on pages 63ff., the major leagues are de-
scribedbytheirRoboCupExecutiveCommitteemembersonthefollowingpages.
Soccer Simulation League
Akiyama, Hideisa AIST, Japan
Dorer, Klaus Hochschule Offenburg, Germany
Talay, Sanem Sariel Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Soccer Small Size League
Akar, Mehmet Bo˘gazi¸ci University, Turkey
Sukvichai, Kanjanapan KasetsartUniversity, Thailand
Weitzenfeld, Alfredo USF Polytechnic, USA
Soccer Middle Size League
Cunha, Bernardo University of Aveiro, Portugal
Merry, Roel Eindhoven University of Technology,
The Netherlands
Takemura,Yasunori Nippon Bunri University, Japan
Soccer Standard Platform League
Lagoudakis,Michail Technical University of Crete, Greece
Lee, Daniel University of Pennsylvania,USA
Hall, Brad University of New South Wales, Australia
Kaminka, Gal Bar Ilan University, Israel
Soccer Humanoid League
Baltes, Jacky University of Manitoba, Canada
Lupian, Luis F. Universidad La Salle, Mexico
Behnke, Sven University of Bonn, Germany
Rescue Robot League
Pellenz, Johannes University of Koblenz-Landau,Germany
Kimura, Tetsuya Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan
Mihankhah, Ehsan K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Iran
Suthakorn, Jackrit Mahidol University, Thailand
VIII RoboCup Leagues in 2011
Rescue Simulation League
Ito, Nobuhiro Aichi Institute of Technology, Japan
Balakirsky,Stephen NIST, USA
Kleiner, Alexander Freiburg University, Germany
@Home League
Iocchi, Luca Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Ruiz-de-Solar,Javier Universidad de Chile, Chile
van der Zant, Tijn University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Sugiura, Komei NICT, Japan
Soccer Simulation League
SoccerSimulationissplitintotwosubleagues:2Dsimulationand3Dsimulation.
2D Simulation
In 2D simulation, two teams of 11 simulated autonomous player agents and a
coach agent play a game of soccer with very realistic rules and game play. In
2011, two major changes were introduced: the red card rule and the improved
ball catch model for goalie agents. When a player performs an intentional foul
command,anautomaticrefereemightdetect the redcardrule.Inthatcase,the
player is sent off the field and the team has to reconsider its strategy.
The current major research topics in 2D simulation are flexibility and an
online adaptation. Some teams introduced new approaches such as an online
tactics planning method and a strategy management using a coach agent. In
future competitions, online coaching techniques will become more important in
order to adapt to the environment.
In all, 20 teams from 11 countries passed the qualification and finally 17
teams participated in the 2D competition. The winner was WrightEagle from
theUniversityofScienceandTechnologyofChina(China),followedbyHELIOS
from Fukuoka University, Osaka Prefecture University and AIST (Japan), and
MarliK from University of Guilan (Iran).
3D Simulation
In3Dsimulation,simulatedNaorobotsplayinaphysicallyrealistic3Denviron-
ment. It is therefore more similar to real robot leagues than 2D simulation yet
has the advantages of simulation that allow one to play in big teams, simplify
learning approaches,and simplify robot model changes.
The 2011 competition introduced a couple of new features. The games were
run in 9 vs. 9 player mode (was 6 vs. 6 in 2010). The field size was increased to
keepthespaceperplayerroughlyconstant.Newcrowdingruleswereintroduced
to keep the number of players approaching the ball at a reasonable level. If two
players of the same team are closer than 1 m to the ball, the farther of the
two is beamed outside the field by the automated referee. Also, the number of
defenders inside the goal area was limited to two. Both changes improved game
RoboCup Leagues in 2011 IX
quality considerably.Moreover,a new visualizationsoftware,roboViz, was used
to show the games. Appart from high-end 3D graphics, it was used for the first
time to allow spectators to watch the games in 3D using a specialized beamer
and 3D glasses.
Technically,teamsshowedimprovedwalkingskills,anewskilltokicktheball
high, a skill to kick the ball while running, backward pull kicks, and improved
get-up behaviors.
Inall,22teamsfrom12countriesparticipatedinthe3Dsimulationcompeti-
tion.ThewinnerwasUTAustinVillafromtheUniversityofTexas(USA)followed
by CIT3DfromChangzhouInstitute ofTechnology(China)andApollo3Dfrom
Nanjing University (China).
Soccer Small Size League
The Small Size League (SSL) is one of the more exciting leagues of RoboCup,
as two teams each consisting of 5 robots with limited size (max height 15 cm,
max diameter 18 cm) play soccer at a high pace with an orange golf ball on a
6.05 m-by-4.0 5m green carpeted field. All objects on the field are tracked by
a standardized vision system and off-field computers are used to communicate
referee commands and position information to the robots. In SSL, building a
successfulteamrequirescleverdesign,implementation, andintegrationofmany
hardwareandsoftwaresub-componentsintoarobustlyfunctioningwhole;hence,
SSL soccer remains a very interesting and challenging domain for research and
education.
The journey to SSL 2011 started when 28 teams from 12 different countries
declared their interest in participation by submitting a pre-registrationnote by
January 31, 2011. The deadline for submission of team description papers and
videosfor allteams wasthe endofFebruary,after which21teams werechoosen
to participate in the tournament while two teams were conditionally qualified,
with the requirement that they would demonstrate sufficient game play before
the games started. Later, two teams dropped out owing to financial problems;
however, the remaining 20 teams from 11 countries participated in RoboCup
2011.These20teamslistedinTable1playedeachotherfirstinfourgroupsand
then the games continued based on elimination starting from the second round,
at the end of which team Skuba was the winner, Immortals the runner up, and
MRL got the third place.
Two technicalchallenges (Dynamic Navigation and Mixed Team Match) and
a(LargeField)demowasheldinIstanbul2011.TheaimoftheDynamicNaviga-
tiontechnicalchallenge,wastoexaminetheabilityofrobotstosafelynavigatein
a dynamic environment (Winner: Skuba, 2nd place: MRL, 3rd place: Thunder-
bots). The Mixed Team Match technical challenge,which was also won by team
Skuba,wasafullmatchbetweenmixedteams,eachcomposedoffiverobotsfrom
two different SSL teams. The Large Field demo was carriedout on a largerfield
twice as big as the regularone, with the objective of exploringthe possibility of
carrying out future SSL games on larger fields.
X RoboCup Leagues in 2011
Table 1. Teams that participated in SSI2011
Countryof OriginTeams
Brazil RoboFEI
Canada Thunderbots
China ZjuNlict
Colombia STOxs,Bochica
Germany ER-Force,Tigers Mannheim
Iran Immortals, MRL, Parsian, Cyrus
Japan RoboDragons, KIKS,ODENS
Mexico Eagle Knights
Thailand Skuba
Turkey BRocks, RoboTurk
USA RoboJackets, RFCCambridge
Soccer Middle Size League
The Middle Size Leagueis,forthe time being,the bestinterfaceleaguebetween
Simulated 2D Soccer and real, fully autonomous, nonhumanoid robots. In this
league robots of up to 50 cm in diameter and 80 cm in height play soccer in
teams of up to five robots, using a regular size FIFA soccer ball on a field sim-
ilar to a scaled human soccer field (currently 18 m × 12 m). Robots are fully
autonomous with all sensors on-board. Cooperation is established by means of
limited bandwidth wireless communication between team robots, and between
robots and a nonoperated computer base station that can act as a coach. No
human interaction with the robots is allowed. The current research focus is on
cooperationatalllevels,fromteamcoordinationusingdynamic roleassignment
toattackanddefenseplanning,goingthroughactiveingameballpassing.Coop-
erationbetweenheterogeneousrobots,3Defficientfastroboticvision,immunity
to environment variable conditions (such as illumination changes), and percep-
tion levels are among other lines of research in this league.
The 2011 event presented some significant achievements mostly in the coop-
erationarea,withagrowingnumberofteamsperformingactiveingamepassing,
and in robustness and reliability of hardware and software (the first game ever
played without the need to remove any robot from the field during the over-
all game). A demonstrationon how to incorporate software from 2D simulation
in robot team coordination using dynamic role and positioning assignment and
role-based set-plays won the Scientific Challenge, while Hibikino-Musashi won
theTechnicalChallengeinvolvingplayingwitharbitrarycoloredballs,dribbling
while navigating on a cluttered area, and team play with passing and scoring.
A total of 15 teams qualified for the 2011 RoboCup event. From those,
12 actually participated in the competition, representing teams from Europe,
Asia,MiddleEast,andAustralia.Thecompetitionwasorganizedinthreeround
robins followed by Mid-Finals and the Final. Table 2 shows the top eight final
classification.
RoboCup Leagues in 2011 XI
Table 2. Final classification
RankTeam Origin Country
1 Water Beijing I.S. T. University China
2 Tech United EindhovenEindhovenUniversityof TechnologyThe Netherlands
3 CAMBADA IEETA/DETI,University of Aveiro Portugal
4 RFCStuttgart Universityof Stuttgart Germany
5 MRL Qazvin Islamic Azad University Iran
6 Hibikino-Musashi Universityof Kitakyushu Japan
7 Carpe Noctem Universityof Kassel Germany
8 ISePorto LSA-ISEP Portugal
Soccer Standard Platform League
The Standard Platform League (SPL) [www.tzi.de/spl]of the RoboCup com-
petitionisuniqueamongtherobotsoccerleagues,inthatallparticipatingteams
compete with identical robot platforms, thereby accentuating advances in algo-
rithmicdevelopmentforfullyautonomousrobots.Thecurrentstandardplatform
is the humanoid NAO robot, a 21 degrees-of-freedom bipedal robot measuring
58 cm in height and weighing 4.3 kg, built by Aldebaran Robotics in Paris,
France.
Fig.1. TheSPL championship match held at RoboCup 2011 in Istanbul,Turkey.
The2011SPLsoccercompetitionattracted27teamsrepresentinguniversities
fromacrossEurope,Asia,Africa,NorthandSouthAmerica,andAustralia.The
soccertournamentfeaturedtwoseparateroundrobinqualifyingrounds,withthe
ensuing finaleightteams playingin the eliminationround.The games consisted
of autonomous teams (of four robots each) playing against each other with an
orangehockeyballona4×6-mgreensoccerfieldwithyellowandbluegoalposts,
solelyusingvisual,ultrasonic,andproprioceptivesensors.Thematchesconsisted
of two 10-minute halves, with ties broken via penalty kick shootouts in the
elimination round. The winners of the 2011 SPL soccer competition were:
