Robot Football Team from Minho University

This paper describes an Autonomous Mobile Robot team which plays football, developed by the Group of Automation and Robotics at the Industrial Electronics department of the University of Minho, in Guimarães (Portugal). In this competition each team is free to use and/or build all the different electronics, sensory systems, playing algorithms, etc. as far as they cope with the rules imposed by the organisation. Instead of using several different sensors increasing electronics complexity, this team decided to use only one major sensor: a vision system with a small colour camera. All the image processing algorithms were developed from scratch and they consist on the heart of the whole project. This vision system uses an innovative approach: in order to see the whole field, a convex mirror was placed at the top of the robot looking downwards with the video camera looking upwards towards the mirror. This way, the robot can see all around itself with a top view, which means continuous vision of the ball, goals and other robots.(undefined

Minho robot football team

Research and development in the robotics field can be greatly improved by attracting people with different challenges. RoboCup consists of a new challenge in which a team of robot players are supposed to play football with similar rules to the human football. This paper describes an Autonomous Mobile Robot Minho team solution. The robots were designed and developed by a group of undergraduate students from the Group of Automation and Robotics from the Industrial Electronics Department of the University of Minho, in Guimarães (Portugal). They were all built (electronics and mechanics) and programmed from scratch with a reduced budget. The main advantage of these robots consists on the image acquisition and processing. It uses a video camera pointing upwards to a convex mirror facing down. With this technique, most of the field is visible, facilitating the strategy of the game

Patriarcas/Minho football team

Autonomous mobile robots are ever increasing their num ber of di erent applications even in ludic application or in sports In the last few years several competitions of football have been organised with lots of teams participating This paper describes an Autonomous Mobile Robot which plays football and it was developed at the Industrial Electronics Engi neering department of the University of Minho in Guimares Portugal Each team is free to solve on his own way all the di erent electronics sensory systems playing algorithms etc as far as they cope with the rules imposed by the organisation Instead of using several di erent sensors increasing electronics complexity it was decided to use only one major sensor namely a vision system with the use of a colour camera All the image processing algorithms were developed from scratch and are hereby described . This vi sion system uses an innovative approach In order to see the whole field a convex mirror was placed on the top of the robot looking downwards with the video camera looking upwards towards the mirror This way the robot can see both goals the ball and other robots almost all the time as well as having a top view

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

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 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

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

Minho robotic football team

Autonomous mobile robots are ever increasing their number of different applications, even in ludic applications or in sports. In the last few years, several robotic football competitions have been organized with participating teams from all over the world. This paper describes a team of Autonomous Mobile Robots which play football, developed by the Group of Automation and Robotics at the Industrial Electronics department (School of Engineering) of the University of Minho, in Guimarães (Portugal). In these competitions each team is free to use and/or build all the different electronics, sensory systems, playing algorithms, etc. as far as they cope with the rules imposed by the organization. From every team new ideas emerge, sometimes the most incredible ones, but proving in the end that they work. These competitions proved to be very fruitful scientifically as well as very mediatic

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