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T-Team - University of Tuebingen

(Vice world champion of RoboCup-98 in Paris)

Information about RoboCup

The Robot World Cup Initiative (RoboCup) is an attempt to foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a standard problem where a wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined. For this purpose, RoboCup chose to use the soccer game, and organize the RoboCup: The Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences. In order for a robot team to actually perform a soccer game, various technologies must be incorporated including: design principles of autonomous agents, multi-agent collaboration, strategy acquisition, real-time reasoning, robotics, and sensor-fusion. RoboCup is a task for a team of multiple fast-moving robots in a dynamic environment. The RoboCup also offers a software platform for research on the software aspects of RoboCup. (excerpt from the official RoboCup site)


T-Team, University of Tuebingen

The T-Team is part of the Wilhelm Schickard Institute for Computer Science (WSI), Dept. of Computer Architecture (Prof. Dr. A. Zell) at the University of Tuebingen, Germany.

The team members are:

with significant contributions by

Robot Hardware

Currently, we are using five modified Pioneers with our own extensions, and a Pioneer AT as Goalkeeper. The extensions comprise:


RoboCup-98 in Paris

Following is a short report of the middle size competition (robots up to 50 cm diameter) of the RoboCup-98 in Paris, at the Cité des Sciences (science museum) in Paris, from 2.-9. July,.1998.

Participating Teams

Group A Group B Group C Group D
Portugal (Portugal) CS Freiburg (Germany) GMD (Germany) Tübingen (Germany)
Osaka (Japan) Nara (Japan) Uttori United (Japan) RMIT, Melb. (Australia)
Ullanta/USC (USA) USC Dream T. (USA) Yale (USA) TU Munic (Germany)
Ulm Sparrows (Germ.) Real MagiCol (F./Col.) LAP (France) Team Italia (Italy)

Team Descriptions

Group A Group B Group C Group D

Results of the preliminary rounds

 Group A Portugal Osaka Ullanta Ulm Sparrows Points
Portugal, P   0:0 0:0 1:1 3
Osaka, Japan  0:0   0:0 4:1 5
Ullanta, USA 0:0 0:0   0:0 3
Ulm Sparrows 1:1 1:4 0:0   2
 
 Group B CS Freiburg Nara, Japan USC Dream T. Real Magic Points
CS Freiburg, D   1:1 (1:1) 1:0 3:0 7
Nara, Japan 1:1 (1:1)   1:1 2:0 5
USC Dream T. 0:1 1:1   2:1 (W) 4
Real Magic, F 0:3 0:2 1:2 (W)   0
 
 Group C GMD Uttori United Yale LAP, France Points
GMD   0:5 0:1 3:1 3
Uttori United 5:0   1:0 2:0 9
Yale 1:0 0:1   2:0 (W) 6
LAP, France 1:3 0:2 0:2 (W)   0
 
 Group D Tübingen RMIT Raiders  TU München Team Italia  Points
Tübingen   2:0 0:0 0:0 5
RMIT Raiders 0:2   2:1 0:0 1
TU München 0:0 2:1   0:1 (0:0) 4
Team Italia 0:0 0:0 1:0 (0:0)   5
 

Results of Final round

Teams Viertelfinale Halbfinale Finale Sieger
A1 Osaka     3.Platz: Osaka
B2 Nara Osaka   2. Platz: Tübing.
B1 CS Freiburg   Freiburg 3:0  
C2 Yale Freiburg    
C1 Uttori     Freiburg 2:0
D2 ART, Italien Uttori    
D1 Tübingen   Tübing. 1:0 (0:0)  
A2 Portugal Tübing. 1:0 (0:0)    
 

Quarter final  Tuebingen vs. Portugal, 7 July, '98, a.m.

Because of massive network problems (persistant jamming of radio ethernet by a different team) all field players of Tuebingen could not be started remotely and stood there fully paralyzed. Fortunately, the Portugese players were not able to score a goal in this time. In the second half all robots of Tuebingen were started locally. By the missing communication the team behavior of the robots was severely impaird, so the regular play ended 0:0.

During penalty shooting Tuebingen had problems controlling the goalkeeper robot (Pioneer AT with custom developed controller board), fortunately the most dangerous shot of Portugal was kept by a late, but very fast acceleration of the goalkeeper. The Portugese goalkeeper also held the Tuebingen shots. Thus, also the penalty shooting (5 shots on each side) ended without goals.
In the following Golden Goal (start from the middle of the opponent's half, driving around the ball and shot into the goal) the Portugese did not bring the ball into the proper half, the Tuebingen robot drove around the ball and shot it rather quickly into the portugese goal.

Semi final Tuebingen vs. Uttori, 7 July, '98 p.m.

The opponent Uttori (2 japanese universities plus Riken research institute) possessed three very large and heavy (50kg) custom built robots, which had an omni-directional drive mechanism and a mechanism to remotely moving the ball with an air blower. In the earlier games this together withthe strength of the robots was the reason for the win streak of Uttori, as they could push their opponents together with the ball over the field into the goal.

The Tuebingen field players could not match the weight and strength of these robots, but the Pioneer AT goalkeeper was strong enough to block the Uttori robot. One of the big Uttori robots nearly crushed him in the attempt to push him with the ball into the goal, but in this attempt nearly fell on its side itself - a very scary moment! Thus the regular play also ended 0:0.

At the 5 penalty goals of Uttori the Tuebingen goal keeper, which because of the removal of its Sick laser scanner and complete reprogramming had been a problem in the earlier games, held all shots with very accurate and swift movements. Of the following penalty shots of Tuebingen the third shot could be placed in the goal thanks to our pneumatic kicker. So Tuebingen reached the final.
 

Final Tuebingen vs. Freiburg, 8 July, '98 p.m.

This final of two german teams of the same state of Baden-Württemberg was especially interesting, because both teams used the same robot platform Pioneer1. Whereas Freiburg used a Sick laser scanner on each robot for global positioning and a Newton Lab vision system for detection and tracking of the ball, Tuebingen relied on its custom developed PC based vision system for ball tracking and relative positioning and on its more powerful pneumatic kicking devices. The laser scanner of the goalkeeper of Tuebingen could not be used because of problems of radio interference of its radio modem, thus Tuebingen had to develop a sonar based goalkeeper position control, which only worked in the final rounds satisfactorily.
Freiburg had shown its advantage in an earlier test match in Ulm, and also was superior in the final. After an early shot by Tuebingen towards the goal which was kept by the goalkeeper of Freiburg the play was concentrated in the half side of Tuebingen. A first attack by Freiburg was stopped by the goalkeeper of Tuebingen, in this interception, however, it moved too far away from its optimal position at the goal line and could not see the ball in the right half of the game area. After a turmoil on the right side an attacker of Freiburg could take the ball and without opposition of Tuebingen's goalkeeper shoot the ball into the goal from a narrow angle. 1:0 for Freiburg at half time.
In the second half again an attack by Tuebingen was countered by Freiburg, a following attack of Freiburg ended at the goalkeeper of Tuebingen. In this situation as well it moved too far from its goal and because of its lack of a kicking device, the ball stayed in dangerous distance to the goal. With its better positioning and its ball handling mechanism an attacker of Freiburg come from the left and pushed the ball with an elegant movement around the goalkeeper into the goal of Tuebingen: Final result 2:0 for Freiburg.

Despite the final loss of Tuebingen all participants were pleased by the relatively good play of all robots, which in comparison to last year's final showed a much more active and intelligent behaviour.
Also the film teams and the spectators on the crowded stands in the Cité des Sciences in Paris were satisfied. Most teams expect to compete again at RoboCup-99 in Stockholm during the IJCAI conference. Before, there will be a rematch of the german middle size teams during the VISION fair from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, 1998 at Stuttgart, Germany.

-Andreas Zell
 

Images

(Images in original size can be loaded by clicking on the reduced images)
 
 
Pioneer AT robots von Ullanta/USC (USA)
 
Robots of GMD, Bonn (Germany) 
 
Pioneer1 Robots of Uni Freiburg (D)
 
Robots of Nara Inst. of Techn. (Japan)
 
Tuebingen vs. Azzurro Robot Team (Italy)
 
 .. same game (preliminar round)
 
Tuebinger attack (without success) in the RoboCup-98 final against Freiburg 
 
The two top teams after the final, 
Freiburg (left) and Tübingen (right)
 

Sponsors of the T-Team

Links

Last Modification: Thursday, 30-Jul-1998 09:07:41 MST
This page is mirrored from www-ra.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de.