R O B O C U P & R O B O T C O M P E T I T I O N S Leen-Kiat Soh November 26, 2007 CSCE475/875 Multiagent Systems Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of Nebraska Fall 2007

Introduction This presentation is based on a set of papers published in late 1990s and early 2000s and is meant to cover a range of negotiation research directions that took place at that time, serving as an informative overview for students who are interested in robocup and robot competitions to pursue more recent papers in the 2000s

Introduction From –To foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a standard problem where wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined, as well as being used for integrated project-oriented education –For a robot team to actually perform a soccer game, various technologies must be incorporated: 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 under a dynamic environment –RoboCup also offers a software platform for research on the software aspects of RoboCup

History 1 From –The idea of robots playing soccer was first mentioned by Professor Alan Mackworth (University of British Columbia, Canada) in a paper entitled ``On Seeing Robots'' presented at VI-92, 1992 –Independently, a group of Japanese researchers organized a Workshop on Grand Challanges in Artificial Intelligence in October, 1992 in Tokyo, discussing possible grand challenge problems led to a serious discussions of using the game of soccer for promoting science and technology

History 2 From cont’d: –In June 1993, a group of researchers, including Minoru Asada, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Hiroaki Kitano, decided to launch a robotic competition, tentatively named the Robot J- League –Within a month, however, due to overwhelming reactions from researchers outside of Japan, the project was renamed the Robot World Cup Initiative, ``RoboCup'' for short

History 3 From cont’d: –Concurrent to this discussion, several researchers were already been using the game of soccer as a domain for their research Itsuki Noda, at ElectroTechnical Laboratory (ETL), Japan, was conducting multi-agent research using soccer, and started the development of a dedicated simulator for soccer games. This simulator later became the official soccer server of RoboCup. Professor Minoru Asada's Lab. at Osaka University on soccer playing robots Professor Manuela Veloso and her student Peter Stone at Carnegie Mellon University on soccer playing robots

History 4 From cont’d: –In September 1993, the first public announcement of the initiative was made, and specific regulations were drafted. Accordingly, discussions on organizations and technical issues were held at numerous conferences and workshops, including AAAI-94, JSAI Symposium, and at various robotics society meetings –Meanwhile, Noda's team at ETL announced the Soccer Server version 0 (LISP version), the first open system simulator for the soccer domain enabling multi-agent systems research, followed by version 1.0 of Soccer Server (C++ Version) which was distributed via the web. The first public demonstration of this simulator was made at IJCAI-95

History 5 From cont’d: –During the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-95) held at Montreal, Canada, August, 1995, the announcement was made to organize the First Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences in conjunction with IJCAI-97 Nagoya The decision was made to organize Pre-RoboCup-96 to identify potential problems associated with organizing RoboCup on a large scale –Pre-RoboCup-96 was held during International Conference on Intelligence Robotics and Systems (IROS-96), Osaka, from November 4 - 8, 1996, with eight teams competing in a simulation league and demonstration of real robot for middle size league

History 6 From cont’d: –The official first RoboCup games and conference was held in 1997 with great success. Over 40 teams participated (real and simulation combined), and over 5,000 spectators attended

Objectives 1 As a vehicle to promote robotics and AI research, by offering publicly appealing, but formidable challenge RoboCup is a landmark project (like landing a man on the moon) as well as a standard problem (like chess) The Dream –By mid-21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win the soccer game, comply with the official rule of the FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup From

Objectives 2 Difference of domain characteristics between computer chess and RoboCup: From ChessRoboCup EnvironmentStaticDynamic State ChangeTurn takingReal time Info. AccessibilityCompleteIncomplete Sensor readingsSymbolicNon-symbolic ControlCentralDistributed

Objectives 3 RoboCup offers an integrated research task covering the broad areas of AI and robotics –Real-time sensor fusion –Reactive behavior –Strategy acquisition –Learning –Real-time planning –Multi-agent systems –Context recognition –Vision –Strategic decision-making –Motor control –Intelligent robot control –and many more From

Major Domains From –RoboCupSoccer Simulation League Small Size Robot League (f-180) Middle Size Robot League (f-2000) Sony Legged Robot League (Sony) Humanoid League (From 2002) TeleOperation Track (TBA) RoboCup Commentator Exhibition –RoboCupRescue Rescue Simulation League Rescue Robot League – RoboCupJunior Soccer Challenge Dance Challenge Rescue Challenge

Introduction: AAAI Robot Competitions 1n 1992, Tom Dean and Pete Bonasso convinced the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) to host a robot competition at the National Conference on AI Patrick Hayes: “cognitive possibilities for mobile robots” “the long-standing symbiotic relationship between AI and robots” Pete Bonasso: “in the spirit of trying to develop as animate, responsive, and intelligent robot behavior as possible”

History : Robots explored a large arena containing easily detected obstacles along with conspicuously marked objects to be located by the robots : Some form of navigation task was maintained, along with a simple manipulation task –All the robots that competed in the events accomplished the tasks in 1995 –Office Delivery Event –Office Cleanup Event

History : The Tennis Court Cleanup task; robots collect numerous tennis balls strewn about the arena and deposit them in a bin –Complicated by battery-powered, quickly moving “squiggle balls” –Top two entries: M1 from Newton Labs (purely reactive), JEEVES from CMU (symbolic reasoning) 1997: –The Hors d’Oeuvres, Anyone? Event, robots serve food to attendees at the conference’s banquet –Find Life on Mars Event –Home Vacuum Event

History : Rescue Competitions; robots explore an arena that simulates a post-earthquake environment for surviving humans 2000: The Mobile Robot Challenge; a robot attends the AAAI conference and presents a talk about itself (including registration, finding the conference room, Q&A, etc.)

Urban Search and Rescue Events 1 In summer 2001, before the 9/11 event, the RoboCup Rescue Physical Agent League Competition was held in conjunction with the AAAI Mobile Robot Competition Urban Search and Rescue event Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) sent four teams to the WTC disaster: –Foster-Miller (Boston) –iRobot (Boston) –US Navy’s Space Warfare Center (SPAWAR) –University of South Florida (USF)

Urban Search and Rescue Events 2 Levels of competence –Robust teleoperation with basic mixed-initiative capabilities –Intelligent assistance –Semiautonomous control –Victim assessment –Metric map making and planning –Structural assessment –Adaptive shoring: selectively brace critical points to prevent subsequent collapse –Trapped victim assistance CAUTION!

Images 1 Asimos demonstrating penalty kicks (PKs)

Images 2 Robots demonstrating penalty kicks (PKs)

Images 3 Individual and team dances

Images 4 Dance team Viki

Images 5 Hoap kicking a ball

Images 6 Junior soccer league

Images 7 Legged soccer league

Images 8 Middle size league

Images 9 Small size league

Images 10 Simulation soccer league

Images 11 Rescue robots

Images 12 Rescue simulation

Websites Images are from of the Fukuoka/Busan Robocup 2002

Readings RoboCup-2001: Robot Soccer World Cup V, Springer-Verlag, 2002 RoboCup-2000: Robot Soccer World Cup IV, Springer-Verlag, 2001 RoboCup-99: Robot Soccer World Cup III, Springer-Verlag, 2000 RoboCup-98: Robot Soccer World Cup II, Springer-Verlag, 1999 RoboCup-97: Robot Soccer World Cup I, Springer-Verlag, 1998 The RoboCup Physical Agent Challenge Phase-I RoboCup-97, Springer-Verlag, 1998 RoboCup: The Robot World Cup Initiative in Proc. of The First International Conference on Autonomous Agent (Agents-97)), Marina del Ray, The ACM Press, RoboCup: A Challenge AI Problem, AI Magazine, Spring, The RoboCup Synthetic Agent Challenge 97, Proc. of IJCAI-97, RoboCup as a Research Program IROS-97, Grenoble, RoboCup in Proc. of IJCAI-95 Workshop on Entertainment and AI/Alife, Montreal, 1995.

References Balch, T. and H. A. Yanco (2002). Ten Years of the AAAI Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition: Looking Back and to the Future, AI Magazine, 23(1): Murphy, R., J. Blitch, and J. Casper (2002). AAAI/RoboCup Urban Search and Rescue Events: Reality and Competition, AI Magazine, 23(1): J. L. Casper and H. A. Yanco (2002). AAAI/RoboCup-2001 Robot Rescue, AI Magazine, 23(1): Veloso, M., et al. (2002). RoboCup-2001: The Fifth Robotic Soccer World Championships, AI Magazine, 23(1):55-68.