MINHO robot football team for 2001

This paper describes an autonomous robot football team. The work is being carried out since 1998. It describes the hardware used by the robots, the sensory system and interfaces, as well as the game strategy. Data acquisition for the perception level is carried out by the vision system, and the image processing system is described. Two cameras are used requiring sensorial fu-sion. With this architecture, an attempted is made to make the autonomous ro-bots more real world intelligent. These robots have a kicker with controlled power, which allows passing the ball to a teammate with controlled distance and direction.(undefined

RoboCup: the evolution of a robotic scientific challenge

The RoboCup is a scientific challenge used to foster research in the robotics areas, which main objective consists in developing a robotic football team able to play against a human team in the year 2050. This paper describes the rules of such a competition, the actual state of the art of robotic football players in the middle size league, and describes the main characteristics to take into account in order to build such type of robots. These aspects are described and analysed in terms of further developments.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - projecto “Development of Robotic Football Team for participation in the RoboCup (Middle Size League)”, POSI/ROBO/43892/2002

Mobile robot construction for edutainment application

As time goes on, there are more and more robotics applications. The limit is almost the imagination of each person. A great deal of industrial work can yet be done by robots and new ideas are blossoming. The entertainment industry is arriving and there are already many ideas as well as real robots on the field. It is important to point out that the entertainment applications not just entertain people as it also brings new research which will then be used in industrial work applications. This paper describes a team of robot football players which compete in a worldwide scientific challenge – the RoboCup.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Vision, kinematics and game strategy in multi-robot systems like MSL RoboCup

In Multi-Robot systems like the RoboCup football challenge, there are a small number of key issues which are of extreme relevance for the successfulness of the final application. In MSL RoboCup these main issues are three: a) The vision system, which has to be as reliable and fast as possible in order to perceive the necessary entities to carry out the game actions; b) Correct kinematics of the robot, that makes the robots move towards the desired goal in the fastest, shortest and optimized away; c) Game strategy, which needs collaboration and communication between all the agents in the field. Other issues are also important but these three consist of the fundamental ones towards the next step in this challenge which is ball pass between the robots in a controlled way. A team of robots will only be able to pass the ball to another robot only when these three issues are sorted out. This paper describes how these three issues were tackled by the MINHO team and shows their next directions

Controlling omni-directional Wheels of a MSL RoboCup autonomous mobile robot

Autonomous Mobile Locomotion is of extreme importance in RoboCup robots. Even though in 2050 the robotic team will very likely use legs rather than wheels, at the moment all teams on middle size league use wheels to overcome other problems first. Most teams are using two driving wheels (with one or two cast wheels), four driving wheels and even three driving wheels. The Minho team has been using two driving wheels for the last 5 years (with two caster wheels), but for reaction speed optimization purposes a new approach of three wheels is being developed. This paper deals with the description of such platform, it describes the advantages and also the type of control used

Optimization of fast moving robots and implementation of I2C protocol to control electronic devices

This paper briefly describes the main changes in the robots from Minho Team since the last RoboCup. Work has been carried out on the robots in order to constantly improve their capabilities, based on the experiences from previous participations. The main topics to deal in this paper are related with the I2C new communications protocol recently implemented in the robots, a description of the whole electronics system based on a new diagram which contains all the devices used in the robots, the inclusion of new faster motors, a description of the robot game play strategy, some operating system remarks which are related to some requirements of our actual system, and the main conclusions related to the work carried out so far. The use of the I2C protocol forced the team to change all the electronic boards and these were completely redesigned in-house, tested and implemented on the robots.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - POSI/ROBO/43892/200

New improvements of MINHO Team for RoboCup middle size league in 2003

Although this research group has started a robotic football team in 1998, MINHO team has been participating in RoboCup only since 1999. The robots were completely developed by the undergraduate team members (mechanics, hardware and software), due to budget reasons, and every year new improvements had been made. The team came to a point where new improvements would mean complete changes in the robot design, hardware and mechanics. Therefore, this year major changes have been implemented. Being all member of an Industrial Electronics department, our main research areas consist of general electronics, computer vision/image processing, and control. In this paper, the major changes implemented are described and some results assessed

Three omni-directional wheels control on a mobile robot

Traditional two wheels differential drive normally used on mobile robots have manoeuvrability limitations and take time to sort out. Most teams use two driving wheels (with one or two cast wheels), four driving wheels and even three driving wheels. A three wheel drive with omni-directional wheel has been tried with success, and was implemented on fast moving autonomous mobile robots. This paper deals with the mathematical kinematics description of such mobile platform, it describes the advantages and also the type of control used

New ways to learn science with enjoyment: robotics as a challenge

It is well known that during their learning process youngsters prefer and enjoy exciting challenges, so that they don’t get bored in school. Many of those challenges are blossoming all around the world in an annual basis, and they stimulate students because they create new objectives, they allow creativity, discovering new and unique solutions and allow comparison of the work carried out by other teams. The robotics interest has been growing quickly and many schools are adopting this knowledge area due to its multidisciplinary, for being stimulating, for allowing students creativity, for being so practical and hands-on, and it technologically sounds good. Many challenges have being created in the last few years, both pedagogical and competitive, and requiring different levels of know-how. This paper describes the most important robotics challenges in terms of it main objectives and rules, the age target, its geographical localization, its average budget and the first steps to be taken for new teams. After reading this paper teachers will be able to decide which robotic challenge is more suitable for his team