Build Your Own Soccer-Playing Robot

An anonymous reader writes "This article by a Ph.D student at Shanghai JiaoTong University (SJTU) Research Institute of Robotics describes an RTLinux-powered robot that placed fifth in the most recent RoboCup competition. The robot has two color cameras for visual sensing along with a laser range finder (LRF) for goalkeeper location, and a wireless LAN allows communication among the robots on SJTU's team. The robot's embedded operating system is Red Hat Linux enhanced with the RTLinuxPro real-time extension."

Comments

5th?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be better to learn from the team who came first?

Red Hat = embedded?

[Alwin Henseler]

From the summary: "The robot's embedded operating system is Red Hat Linux enhanced with the RTLinuxPro real-time extension."

Using Red Hat for embedding in a robot application? Sounds like an awful poor choice of tools, if you ask me.

Re:Red Hat = embedded?

[KingPunk]

well, Linux, is only the kernel. the rest is just choice of userland tools/patches etc.

RTL stands for Real Time Linux, and its a patch that can be easily applied to any Linux kernel
that is relatively recent, but iirc, it works best on 2.6+.. Redhat, whilist a crappy "OS" overall due to their way of handling stuff, doesn't make their kernel any less effective as a RealTime kernel.
espically since its commerically supported if you coughed up the dough.

props to all my unix brethren ;)

Linux 1, Microsoft Nil

[tiktok]

They were experimenting with robot soccer players that ran on Windows, but unfortunately they couldn't get them to run for 90 minutes straight.

Re:Linux 1, Microsoft Nil

[billsoxs]

So did the robots turn blue and die or did the OS need to be reloaded?

Re:Linux 1, Microsoft Nil

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. Even Microsoft's own gaming development company made fun of the Blue screen in Halo 2 Zanzibar map.

Re:Linux 1, Microsoft Nil

[SnowZero]

Laugh all you want, but Windows-based teams dominate 2 out of the 3 RoboCup soccer leagues. For small size, the top three teams are Windows-based:
1 - Fu-Fighters (Germany)
2 - RoboRoos (Australia)
3 - LuckyStar (Singapore)
4 - CMRoboDragons (USA & Japan) - go Linux!
In the dogs (Aibos), the Aibo itself is running Sony's Aperios operating system, but then there's the platform on which all the development is based:
1 - German Team (Germany, duh)
2 - UTS Unleashed (Australia)
3 - NuBots (Australia)
4 - UPennalizers (USA) - mixed Win/Linux IIRC
The remainder is the midsize, in which Linux does very well. That's because large embedded systems (i.e. 40cm cubic robots) are very well suited for Linux and not so much for Windows (For example, being able to ssh into the robot and run code is nice).

The CMU teams of which I am a part (CMRoboDragons, CMPack) are 100% Linux and proud of it, but Windows does much better than you'd think. Cornell's small size team even gets money from Microsoft (they're a 4-time champion).

Robo-Fans.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they going to build robot fans that tear up the town when their team loses?

Cyberball, I have not forgotten thee.

[phaln]

I hear predictions about robots taking the World Cup in 2050, and it certainly seems like we're moving that way. Still, I'm holding out for some Cyberball-style action -- that's where it's at.

Maradonabot & Obligatory Futurama

[bildungsroman_yorick]

After the robots done performing it's primary objective is the secondary objective becoming a fat, cocaine snorting Hedonismbot?

Andres Escobar

[Michael Hunt]

Now all we gotta do is wait for this thing to score an own goal and it'll get shot at the airport on its way home.

I love soccer fans :)

What's next?

[GuyMannDude]

First we got robot soldiers and now we got robot soccer players. What we really need are robotic Mexican soccer announcers:

cout << "He shoots!" << endl;
cout << "He scores!" << endl;
cout << "G";
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; ++i)
{
cout << "o";
}
cout << "al!" << endl;

GMD

2050 World Cup Championship

[dhj]

Last time I saw a post about this on Slashdot Vision was boasting they would be able to win the World Cup in 2050... I felt the need to call bullshit on that boast, but for the wrong reason.

The reason I called bullshit originally is because I remember seeing an amazing achievement in robot dexterity in 1998. The Honda prototype, Asimo, slowly, precisely and precariously walk up a few steps without toppling. After seeing that robot hobble up some stairs, my response to a humanoid robot with soccer player dexterity within 45 years was a predictable... Bullshit.

If you were thinking the same thing... Take a look at these pics and vids. They are impressive. They just might have soccer player dexterity by 2050. Without having to worry about getting tired or even slowing down they could pose a major threat (in soccer, put your tinfoil hat back on).

However, I'm still going to call bullshit. Mainly because soccer, unlike chess, deals with full freedom of motion in a 3D field. Computers only recently were able to master chess on a world competition level with intense processing. Chess is played on an 8x8 field, with significant, but limited, branching. The 3D nature of soccer (or even the 2D nature of novice soccer) presents branching that could be arguably higher than that of Go. Combine that with the fact that soccer players aren't going to wait a turn for the computer to "think". This is my new reason for calling bullshit on a Robot 2050 World Cup Champion.

But, damn if those robot control systems aren't impressive. I wouldn't mind eating these words. Robots are cool.

--David

Re:Soccer cyborgs

[Tellalian]

I hardly think kicking rocket launchers at people will be an effective military strategy.

I can see it now...

[Berserker76]

01000111 01001111 01000001 01001100 00100001 00100001 00100001 00100001 00100001 00100001 (GOAL!!!!!!)

The robot wont overtake real soccer players

[Timesprout]

Until they build a robot that obsesses about its appearance and is embarassingly caught shagging the nanny robot.

They build an expensive robot that indulges in some high frequency snorting to improve its 'off the field' performance.

They build another expensive robot that 'forgets' to turn up for mandatory checks and goes shopping instead.

A robot admits it tried to deliberately damage another robot in a revenge tackle.

Slapper robots are developed which can be 'roasted' by the football robots.

One of the new generation super robots is photographed leaving a brothel populated by pvc wearing granny robots (probably the current robots recycled a few times).

Re:Red cards?? That's what football is all about!

[SnowZero]

2 of the 3 RoboCup soccer leauges already have red cards, believe it or not. Probably the craziest thing I've ever seen in 6 years of RoboCup was in 1999, in a game between FU-Fighters (Germany) and RobotIS (Korea) in the small size leauge. Small size robots are up to 180mm in diameter, and up to 150mm tall. Germany had robots where the "kicker" was an 800 RPM spinning aluminum metal plate, while robotIS had tiny robots (from another leauge). At one point Germany's robot kicked one of the RobotIS robots completely into the air! It did a complete flip, and when it landed, it just kept on playing, which was almost more amazing. Not suprisingly there were several red cards in that game.

Small-size leauge resources

[SnowZero]

If you really want to build your own, why not start from a team with open-source software or published robot designs?

RoboRoos - Currently the software release seems to be down, but a friendly email to them would probably fix it.
CMDragons - My team (whee shameless plug). Our complete 2002 software is available (runs on Debian). RedZone robotics is currently selling a robot based on our design.
RoboRoos - These guys have done very well the last couple of years, and have a fair amount of information online as well.

its called Football not Soccer !

[wildBoar]

Well at least where I come from.

No accident that the organising world body is Called FIFA, the european one EUFA and the English one FA.

Top marks to the person who can tell me what FA stands for !

LRF = Laser Range Finder?

[Aaron Denney]

I always thought it mean "Little Rubber Feet".