Distributed active traction control system applied to the RoboCup middle size league

This work addresses the problem of traction control in mobile wheeled robots in the particular case of the RoboCup Middle Size League (MSL). The slip control problem is formulated using simple friction models for ISePorto Team robots with a differential wheel configuration. Traction was also characterized experimentally in the MSL scenario for relevant game events. This work proposes a hierarchical traction control architecture which relies in local slip detection and control at each wheel, with relevant information being relayed to a higher level responsible for global robot motion control. A dedicated one axis control embedded hardware subsystem allowing complex local control, high frequency current sensing and odometric information procession was developed. This local axis control board is integrated in a distributed system using CAN bus communications. The slipping observer was implemented in the axis control hardware nodes integrated in the ISePorto robots and was used to control and detect loss of for traction. %and to detect the ball in the kicking device. An external vision system was used to perform a qualitative analysis of the slip detection and observer performance results are presented.

Design of the ISePorto robocup Middle-Size League Robotic Soccer Team: Control, Localisation and Coordination

Proceedings of the 10th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation - MED2002 Lisbon, Portugal, July 9-12, 2002

Control and Localisation for the ISePorto Robotic Soccer Team

International Conference on Advanced Robotics, Coimbra, Portugal, Julho 2003

Real-Time Visual Ground-Truth System for Indoor Robotic Applications

The robotics community is concerned with the ability to infer and compare the results from researchers in areas such as vision perception and multi-robot cooperative behavior. To accomplish that task, this paper proposes a real-time indoor visual ground truth system capable of providing accuracy with at least more magnitude than the precision of the algorithm to be evaluated. A multi-camera architecture is proposed under the ROS (Robot Operating System) framework to estimate the 3D position of objects and the implementation and results were contextualized to the Robocup Middle Size League scenario.

A Real Time Vision System for Autonomous Systems: Characterization during a Middle Size Match

in RoboCup 2007: Robot Soccer World Cup XI

Ball Sensing in a Leg Like Robotic Kicker

The trend to have more cooperative play and the increase of game dynamics in Robocup MSL League motivates the improvement of skills for ball passing and reception. Currently the majority of the MSL teams uses ball handling devices with rollers to have more precise kicks but limiting the capability to kick a moving ball without stopping it and grabbing it. This paper addresses the problem to receive and kick a fast moving ball without having to grab it with a roller based ball handling device. Here, the main difficulty is the high latency and low rate of the measurements of the ball sensing systems, based in vision or laser scanner sensors.Our robots use a geared leg coupled to a motor that acts simultaneously as the kicking device and low level ball sensor. This paper proposes a new method to improve the capability for ball sensing in the kicker, by combining high rate measurements from the torque and energy in the motor and angular position of the kicker leg. The developed method endows the kicker device with an effective ball detection ability, validated in several game situations like in an interception to a fast pass or when chasing the ball where the relative speed from robot to ball is low. This can be used to optimize the kick instant or by the embedded kicker control system to absorb the ball energy.

Prevalence of low back pain and associated factors in adults from a middle-size Brazilian city

Objective: To determine the prevalence of low back pain and some related variables among adults of both genders. Methods: Was conduct a cross-sectional study of population-based in the urban area of Presidente Prudente, São Paulo. The sample consisted of 743 adult residents for over two years in this city. Low back pain, quality of sleep and physical activity were collected through face to face interview at the residence of respondents. Was used the chi-square test to analyze the association between variables, later was created tree multivariate models with hierarchical inclusion of confounding factors. Results: The prevalence of low back pain reported last year was 50.2% (95% CI: 46.6, 53.8), and the last week 32.3% (95% CI: 28.9, 35.6). Was association among low back pain and females (p-value = 0.031), older age, lower education, altered sleep and overweight, the adjusted model found that people over the age of 45 years (45 to 59.9 years, OR = 13.1 [1.72-98.5] and ≥ 60 years, OR = 9.10 [1.15-71.7]), with some alteration of sleep (OR = 3.21 [1.84-5.61]) and obese (OR = 2.33 [1:26 to 4:33]) seems to be a risk group for low back pain. Conclusion: The prevalence of low back pain is high and obese people aged over 45 years, with any sleep disturbance are a group at higher risk for low back pain.

Training organization of a middle-size company engaged in information technology services: theory and practice

In order to establish an active internal know-how -reserve~ in an information processing and engineering services . company, a training architecture tailored to the company as an whole must be defined. When a company' s earnings come from . advisory services dynamically structured i.n the form of projects, as is the case at hand, difficulties arise that must be taken into account in the architectural design. The first difficulties are of a psychological nature and the design method proposed here begjns wi th the definition of the highest training metasystem, which is aimed at making adjustments for the variety of perceptions of the company's human components, before the architecture can be designed. This approach may be considered as an application of the cybernetic Law of Requisita Variety (Ashby) and of the Principle of Conceptual Integrity (Brooks) . Also included is a description of sorne of the results of the first steps of metasystems at the level of company organization.

Agile Case Study Evaluation In Middle Size Project

In the last few years Agile methodologies appeared as a reaction to traditional ways of developing software and acknowledge the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes. This paper shortly presents a combination between Rational Uni ed Process and an agile approach for software development of e-business applications. The resulting approach is described stressing on the strong aspects of both combined methodologies. The article provides a case study of the proposed methodology which was developed and executed in a successful e-project in the area of the embedded systems.

Dynamic set pieces for CAMBADA team

Robotics is an emergent branch of engineering that involves the conception, manufacture, and control of robots. It is a multidisciplinary field that combines electronics, design, computer science, artificial intelligence, mechanics and nanotechnology. Its evolution results in machines that are able to perform tasks with some level of complexity. Multi-agent systems is a researching topic within robotics, thus they allow the solving of higher complexity problems, through the execution of simple routines. Robotic soccer allows the study and development of robotics and multiagent systems, as the agents have to work together as a team, having in consideration most problems found in our quotidian, as for example adaptation to a highly dynamic environment as it is the one of a soccer game. CAMBADA is the robotic soccer team belonging to the group of research IRIS from IEETA, composed by teachers, researchers and students of the University of Aveiro, which annually has as main objective the participation in the RoboCup, in the Middle Size League. The purpose of this work is to improve the coordination in set pieces situations. This thesis introduces a new behavior and the adaptation of the already existing ones in the offensive situation, as well as the proposal of a new positioning method in defensive situations. The developed work was incorporated within the competition software of the robots. Which allows the presentation, in this dissertation, of the experimental results obtained, through simulation software as well as through the physical robots on the laboratory.

Goal detection using laser range finder for goalkeeper and striker from CAMBADA team

For a robot be autonomous and mobile, it requires being attached with a set of sensors that helps it to have a better perception of the surrounding world, to manage to localize itself and the surrounding objects. CAMBADA is the robotic soccer team of the IRIS research group, from IEETA, University of Aveiro, that competes in the Middle-Size League of RoboCup. In competition, in order to win, the main objective of the game it's to score more goals than the conceded, so not conceding goals, and score as much as possible it's desirable, thus, this thesis focus on adapt an agent with a better localization capacity in defensive and offensive moments. It was introduced a laser range finder to the CAMBADA robots, making them capable of detecting their own and the opponent goal, and to detect the opponents in specific game situations. With the new information and adapting the Goalie and Penalty behaviors, the CAMBADA goalkeeper is now able to detect and track its own goal and the CAMBADA striker has a better performance in a penalty situation. The developed work was incorporated within the competition software of the robots, which allows the presentation, in this thesis, of the experimental results obtained with physical robots on the laboratory field.

Sistema de Visão Stereo Ativo aplicado aos robôs do ISePorto

A presente dissertação endereça o desenvolvimento de um sistema de visão stereo ativo para os robôs de futebol robótico da equipa ISePorto do ISEP, de modo a que estes tirem o máximo partido das câmaras rotativas neles existentes. Este trabalho surge da necessidade de melhorar a capacidade de perceção do ambiente por parte dos robôs, principalmente da perceção da bola quando não está no plano do campo e dos robôs adversários. Esta necessidade surge devido ao aumento da dinâmica que se tem vindo a veri car ultimamente nas competições. Para tal, foram estudados algumas trabalhos relacionados no que diz respeito a sistemas de visão stereo com baselines variáveis e eixos de rotação em ambas as câmaras, bem como fundamentos de visão stereo. Foi proposta uma arquitetura para o sistema de visão ativo de modo a ser aplicado em qualquer robô da equipa MSL (Middle Size League). Para tornar possível a implementação desta arquitetura foi desenvolvido um procedimento para a calibração e determinação em tempo real dos parâmetros extrínsecos do par stereo em função da posição angular dos eixos rotativos do robô. O sistema de visão foi também dotado de capacidade de sincronismo e foram implementadas funcionalidades ao nível de software que possibilitam a deteção de objetos na imagem, a correspondência de objetos presentes nas imagens de ambas as câmaras e consequentemente a determinação das posições tridimensionais desses objetos relativamente ao robô. O sistema desenvolvido foi testado e validado em cenário MSL ao nível de perceção da bola, robôs adversários e linhas do campo. Os resultados obtidos apresentam uma melhoria signi cativa, face à implementação atual dos robôs, na perceção tridimensional da bola quando não está no plano do campo, e dos robôs adversários.

Classifying an opponent's behaviour in robot soccer

This paper illustrates the prediction of opponent behaviour in a competitive, highly dynamic, multi-agent and partially observableenvironment, namely RoboCup small size league robot soccer. The performance is illustrated in the context of the highly successful robot soccer team, the RoboRoos. The project is broken into three tasks; classification of behaviours, modelling and prediction of behaviours and integration of the predictions into the existing planning system. A probabilistic approach is taken to dealing with the uncertainty in the observations and with representing the uncertainty in the prediction of the behaviours. Results are shown for a classification system using a Naïve Bayesian Network that determines the opponent’s current behaviour. These results are compared to an expert designed fuzzy behaviour classification system. The paper illustrates how the modelling system will use the information from behaviour classification to produce probability distributions that model the manner with which the opponents perform their behaviours. These probability distributions are show to match well with the existing multi-agent planning system (MAPS) that forms the core of the RoboRoos system.

RoboCup Soccer Leagues

RoboCup was created in 1996 by a group of Japanese, American, and European Artificial Intelligence and Robotics researchers with a formidable, visionary long-term challenge: “By 2050 a team of robot soccer players will beat the human World Cup champion team.” At that time, in the mid 90s, when there were very few effective mobile robots and the Honda P2 humanoid robot was presented to a stunning public for the first time also in 1996, the RoboCup challenge, set as an adversarial game between teams of autonomous robots, was fascinating and exciting. RoboCup enthusiastically and concretely introduced three robot soccer leagues, namely “Simulation,” “Small-Size,” and “Middle-Size,” as we explain below, and organized its first competitions at IJCAI’97 in Nagoya with a surprising number of 100 participants [RC97]. It was the beginning of what became a continously growing research community. RoboCup established itself as a structured organization (the RoboCup Federation www.RoboCup.org). RoboCup fosters annual competition events, where the scientific challenges faced by the researchers are addressed in a setting that is attractive also to the general public. and the RoboCup events are the ones most popular and attended in the research fields of AI and Robotics.RoboCup further includes a technical symposium with contributions relevant to the RoboCup competitions and beyond to the general AI and robotics.