ROBO SOCCER AS A SYSTEM LEVEL TEACHING PLATFORM

ROBO SOCCER AS A SYSTEM LEVEL TEACHING PLATFORM Main building of Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia. The Robot Football system is located in a house across the yard Kai LINDGREN Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia In autumn 2008: “Metropolia” April 6, 2008 1

USE IN STADIA (Miro. Sot) Hardware and system-level programs are in the responsibility of Merlin Systems Corp. , Ltd. Plymouth, England. HOORAY ! Hardware solutions teached for own students Firmware and strategy programs written by own students from scratch April 6, 2008 2

Insect Robot of Stadia In the early 90 s April 6, 2008 3

General view of the apparatus April 6, 2008 4

News of robot football In a Finnish newspaper ”Metro” on Apr. 6, 2004 April 6, 2008 5

SYSTEM STRUCTURE ”Miro. Sot” • • Football pitch (field) circa 1, 8 m x 2, 2 m TV-camera for each team PC (computer) for each team 5 Miro. Sot robots for each side (or 3/2/1 or …) PC interprets the view (robot and ball positions) and sends (Bluetooth) individual commands for the robots of own team. April 6, 2008 6

SYSTEM PICTURE April 6, 2008 7

Miabot ROBOT STRUCTURE • Cubic-form with edge lenght of 7. 5 cm • One wheel on each side. Own motor for both wheels, battery operated • Motors powered with pulses done with AVR-type micro controller • Communication with PC done with AVRtype micro controller • Separate Bluetooth-module converts communication to virtual serial connections (COM-ports) April 6, 2008 8

ROBOT PICTURES Merlin Miabot Pro Robot - Of Miro. Sot type - Two AVR-controllers - Fast, robust and heavy Merlin Miabot Classic Robot - One AVR-controller - Slow, cheaper April 6, 2008 9

MORE PICTURES Merlin Miabot Pro Control Board with Bluetooth Daughter Board on top The robots may be controlled manually with joystick controllers April 6, 2008 10

ACHIEVMENTS IN STADIA One course realized in Embedded Systems - Firmware programming from scratch - Bluetooth communication with PC - Run direct lines or circles Two courses realized in Sytem structure - Light adjustments - Bluetooth adjusments Strategy simulation seminars many times - For students and teachers April 6, 2008 11

FINAL WORKS, 15 ECTS - Nikolai Barmin: FW-programming - Teemu Sarvamaa: System structure and simple programming in PC - Mikko Pasanen: Light and Bluetooth adjustment and strategy programming in PC Now in construction April 6, 2008 12

STRATEGY SKELETON ”DIEGO” In use now. Lacks and development tasks: 1 The strategy do not try to prevent robots from colliding each other 2 Basically the strategy is only for 3 players for there is only one kind of attacker and defender. 3 Also I think that the accuracy of robotic movements should be revised. 4 The exact logic of all decisions should be checked 5 The indentation of the program should be checked 6 The program should be more commented 7 Some often repetitive tasks should be separated to new functions 8 The collided robots must be got apart immediately of the walls of the pitch or the other players. April 6, 2008 13

Arg(x+yi) double angle (double x, double y) { if (abs(x) < 1 E-6 && abs(y) < 1 E-6) return 360; // Error if (abs(x) < 1 E-6 && y > 0) return 90; if (abs(x) < 1 E-6 && y < 0) return -90; double a=atan (y/x); if (x > 0) // I or IV return a; else // x < 0, that is II or III if (y >= 0) // II return 180+a else // III return -180+a; } Example of strategy development tasks 7 ”Some often repetitive tasks should be separated to new functions” April 6, 2008 14

FUTURE PLANS IN STADIA • Establishing of many teams to compete in strategy programming • Programming of control systems • Switching to potential field strategy skeleton ”Nottingham” • Free Robo. Soccer Online game: Play and download free online games. . . • … April 6, 2008 15

ADDITIONAL KITS OF MERLIN Merlin Miabot Pro Infrared Line Modular Intelligence Kit Following Kit. April 6, 2008 16

FIRA information in Google • FIRA - Federation of International Robosoccer Association • 1995 International Organizing Committee: Micro-Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament, initiated by Jong-Hwan Kim, KAIST, Korea • President Jong-Hwan Kim Korea. KAIST Vice Presidents: Bing. Rong Hong China. Harbin Inst. of Tech. Paul Robinson U. K. Univ. of Plymouth Peter Kopacek Austria. Vienna Univ. of Tech. • 13 th FIRA Robo. World Cup China 2008 Date: 22 -25 July 2008 Venue: Shinan Software Park, Qingdao China April 6, 2008 17

FIRA information in Google Leagues: • Huro. Cup – Humanoid Robot • Khepera. Sot - …. . • Miro. Sot – Micro Robot • Naro. Sot – Nano Robot • Andro. Sot – Robot 600 g, Remote Control • Robo. Sot – 20 cm x No limit in h. • Simuro. Sot – The 3 D simulation platform for 5 vs. 5 and 11 vs. 11 games are available at FIRA web site. April 6, 2008 18

Robo. Cup information in Google • Robo. Cup™ is an international research and education initiative. Its goal is to foster artificial intelligence and robotics research • The concept of soccer-playing robots was first introduced in 1993. 2006 in Bremen, Germany, in 2007 in Atlanta, USA • President Prof. Minoru Asada, Adaptive Machine Systems Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University Vice Presidents: Prof. Dr. sc. Hans-Dieter Burkhard, Inst. of Informatics Hmboldt University Berlin Prof. Manuela Veloso; Computer Science Department, School of Computer Science. Carnegie Mellon University • The 12 th Robo. Cup International Competitions and Conferences, Robo. Cup-2008 Suzhou is to be held on 14 -20 July 2008, Suzhou, China. April 6, 2008 19

Robo. Cup information in Google Leagues: • Simulation league • Small-size robot league • Middle-size robot league • Four-legged robot league • Humanoid league • Rescue Simulation League ( Agent / Virtual Robot ) • Rescue Robot League • … April 6, 2008 20