RoboCup Soccer Simulation League 2006 (The World Championship in simulated robotic Soccer)

RoboCup 1997-2006: pictures wanted

2006-04-25T12:31:00.000+02:00

To present the almost 10 years of RoboCup Soccer Simulation League competitions at the simulation league site this year, I am looking for photos from previous RoboCup competitions, especially with participants of Soccer Simulations League competitions (and the simulation sites). The goal would be to show the best 90~100 pictures from Simulation League 97-05 on site (as prints). Especially if you attended one of the early RoboCup competitions or know somebody who did: please send me your best picture(s) (preferable in high quality). If you have prints, negatives or slides and no scanner available, I can also do the scanning for you (please contact me by email). The picture above (provided by Hans-Dieter Burkhard / AT Humboldt) shows the award ceremony of 1997 with the first Soccer Simulation Champion AT Humboldt from Berlin.

SimLeague in AI Game Programming Wisdom 3

2006-04-13T15:21:00.000+02:00

Recently, I received a package from the publishers of the AI Game Programming Wisdom with Volume 3 of the series, which is currently about to appear. The reason for the package is our article Fast, Neat and under Control: Arbitrating Between Steering Behaviors (written by Heni, Jan, and myself), which is part of the book. The article explains a new arbitration method for steering behaviors as we used it for Soccer Simulation League 2D. Besides our paper, there are a couple of articles in the book which look very interesting for participants of robotic soccer competitions, like the article about Coordinating Teams with HTN Planning by Hector Munoz-Avila and Hai Hoang (an approach for coordination by HTN planning for multiagent teams, and an extended version of the steering behaviors article were also chapters in my PhD thesis I submitted recently). Some other chapters of the book seem to be interesting for future simulator developments, for example the article about Autonomous Camera Control with Constraint Satisfaction Methods by Owen Bourne and Abdul Sattar. Would be interesting to try out some of the approaches proposed in this book, unfortunately, there's only the same problem as usual: too little time to do everything at once.

Simulation meets Real Robots

2006-03-28T09:12:00.000+02:00

March is already almost over, and this is the first entry this month (sigh!). Three month before the official start, media in Germany started to discover RoboCup 2006, for example RoboCup was a topic in the half-time break during the match Germany vs. USA (actually, I missed the match until the 2nd half, but over 15 Million other people have seen Germanys soccer experts next to the new humanoid robot from Freiburg :) The ZDF (one of the big public broadcasters) is now looking for a name for the new robot... The simulation is progressing slowly, but a few bugs have been discovered just recently, which I hope to fix this week. The good news is that Spark (the basis for the 3D Soccer Simulation) will not only be used in 3D Soccer Simulation, but also for a project at Osaka University, where tiny Eco-Be! robots (made by Citizen, see the picture) are used to play soccer. Actually, the idea is to have a kind of enhanced reality setup, where the robots (kind of) visualize a simulation run with Spark. In this setting, the robots play on a big flat panel, ball and the soccer field are simulated by Spark, and a camera tracks the robot position from above (see the picture on the left. Pictures courtesy of the Asada lab, Osaka University). On the Eco-Be! project web page, there are much more details about the robots and the new mini league planned for RoboCup 2007. I think this is a great application for Spark, and I'm already looking forward to see the new league... I only wonder how long it will take until we get a humanoid mini league ;-). Anyway, what would you do with a couple of these tiny robots (besides playing soccer)? For example, a setup like the one above could be used to create new kinds of computer games... any ideas?

The RoboCup 2006 site

2006-02-22T11:54:00.000+01:00

Just recently, I visited the Bremen Fair, the site where RoboCup 2006 will be held. The overall plan for the arenas used for RoboCup (4 huge exhibition halls!) looks really good, and the Simulation Leagues can be found in the "main" exhibition hall (no. 5). The plan below shows the preliminary setup for hall no. 5. The orange colored area is the place where Soccer Simulation League will be located. You will notice that there are some food courts around ("Bistro", "Catering"), which is obviously a good thing because you will have the opportunity to spend some nights there (it will be open 24 hours during the competition). Personally, I'm not sure if this is good news or not, because it gives you even less time for sleep as an organizer. For some teams, it might definitely be a plus. The Bremen Fair is right in the center of the city, and is in walking distance from the main station. There should be a couple of Hotels around, and also, public transport works quite good, so no need to worry much about getting there. The photo from inside the hall is just here to show the dimensions, there is nothing much else to see (other than old cars :). The setup for RoboCup will be done shortly before RoboCup, as the fair is obviously used for other events in between. However, just recently it was confirmed that the machines for Soccer Simulation League will be sponsored (for the time during RoboCup), and I will post specifications as soon as I know the details.

Qualification Deadline

2006-02-13T15:09:00.000+01:00

The deadline for installing teams for the 2D qualification via Internet League has just passed. 15 groups managed to submit teams, which are currently being transferred to the league machines. If everything runs smoothly, a qualification round will take approximately 24 hours. These matches should be viewable online;the URL will be posted here and also to the email lists once we start. On the right hand side of this web page, you will notice a newsticker containing links to recent news about RoboCup. The software agent delivering this information was donated by WizAI.com, a company providing news monitoring services (The agent delivers only recent news, so from time to time, there might be no messages. With RoboCup 2006 being in Germany, a couple of the articles will be in German, obviously).
During last week, I had the chance to do a (very) little sightseeing. The pictures I have posted here show the science center close to the University (the building looking like a crashed flying saucer); the "town musicians" (animals from a fairy tale, the landmark of Bremen city); and one of the classic windmills in Bremen, this one located in the center of the city.

Qualification Procedures

2006-01-26T10:47:00.000+01:00

Currently preparations for qualifications and final registration is in progress. With still many things left to do, and also the deadline of the RoboCup symposium approaching, there is quite some work for all of us organizers. Because of this, there was quite little time to write something, but hopefully I get used to write articles on a more regular basis here. The 2D Soccer Simulation League teams need to qualify via Internet League. The machines are already set up, and accounts are being created on request for preregistered teams. There are only a few people who are in charge of the SSIL (the main person being Steffi, a student from the AI Group in Koblenz), so please bear with us if things take their time. Hopefully, we can run all qualification matches in real time, so we should be able to play a couple of matches until the qualification deadline. For the 3D League, there are different options on what agents to use for the competition, the legged ones or the spheres again. The decision is mainly left to the organizing committee, but also discussed in the technical comittee. Also, there is the question of what timers to use (should SPADES be part of the simulation we are using this year, or do we use a timing model similar to the 2D Simulator?). For qualification, however, teams can either play against the 2006 champion team Aria, or, alternatively, implement a controller for the legged agents. Decisions will announced very soon, and no matter what will be decided, some implementation issues are still left. Even if there will be a decision against legged agents for the 2006 3D soccer competition, we will at least have a technical challenge for legged agents. This means, the work people spend in implementing controllers is not all lost. As such, the road map for Soccer Simulation League clearly leads to using legged agents one day, if not this year, then next year. We tried hard to get everything implemented into the simulator, but unfortunately there was more work to be done than we could handle in the available time. Some important changes already made it into the 3D Simulator, as there is code now for offside and communication. So there is some progress compared to last year. In terms of organizing the equipment for the league, the hardware for the competition is not yet available, and it will take some time until we know the exact specification of the machines. Machines for the simulation leagues are usually one of the major points in the budget of the organization, if there is no sponsor who is able to lend the machines. At least this is what I was told in previous competitions. We hope to get machines similar to the ones in Osaka last year, and hopefully also that many. Besides informing about the work in the league, I hoped to be able to tell you something about the city of RoboCup 2006. The first three or four weeks here have been quite busy here in Bremen, so that I haven't had a chance to go out yet. I guess it's a pity because I heard there are some nice clubs here. However, for many of the RoboCup participants it might be interesting to know that there is at least one Persian restaurant in the city (see the picture; I also heard that there are more). I haven't been in yet, but suggestions on Persian specialities are welcome.

Happy New Year 2006

2006-01-06T23:14:00.000+01:00

With the beginning of this year, I have been changing my job: I am working at the Intelligent Systems Department at the Center for Computing Technologies of the University of Bremen now, so that I am already in the right place to help organizing the RoboCup 2006 competitions. With these webpages, I'll try to give some impressions of the city (which is also new for me), and I'll also try to provide some information about the progress of organizing the Soccer Simulation League competitions. All in all, nothing essential for the RoboCup Simleague participants, but hopefully interesting enough for you to drop by from time to time. The first picture here shows a landmark, located directly next to the building where I am working now: the 145m high drop tower, which is a facility of the University of Bremen used for physical experiments. The tower has nothing to do with my work here (I'd use a simulator instead ;-), but to get close to the University it is quite useful for self-localization...