1. 2005 Level IV Design Project SOCCER ROBOTS Michael Hill Nicholas Jones Michael Shanahan Supervisor: Dr Frank Wörnle

2. RoboCup International robotic soccer competition Promotes studies in: Automation Artificial Intelligence Strategic Programming

3. Goals & Objectives Research & develop a design meeting RoboCup small-size league entry criteria Manufacturing a team of three such robots Development & implement a vision system to enable multi-agent coordination

4. Goals & Objectives Design & implement a communications system to facilitate automation & strategic game-play Comply with the AU$250.00 budget Provide a solid foundation for future project teams to build upon & achieve success

5. Design Overview Mechanical Design Vision System AI Software Communications System Current & Future Work Conclusion

6. Mechanical Design Drive System Kicker Device Power Chassis

7. Mechanical Design Drive System Two Wheel Differential Omnidirectional Team Lucky Star, 2004 Weber, 2004 University of Auckland, 2005

8. Mechanical Design Drive System Final Design: A differential drive system using M42SP-5 stepper motors. Cost effective Readily available Satisfy torque and speed requirements

9. Mechanical Design Drive System – Motor Selection Performance Specifications Acceleration 1 m/s 2 Velocity 1 m/s Parameters Robot Mass: 1.9 kg Wheel Radius: 30 mm Step Size: 7.5 o Motor Speed: 365 pps Required Torque: 43 mN.m Maximum Speed: 1.4 m/s MGEN, 2005

10. Mechanical Design Kicker Device Spring Powered Pneumatics Solenoid Weber, 2004

11. Mechanical Design Kicker Device Final Design: Pull-type solenoid with lever Cost effective Simple to build

12. Mechanical Design Power Powered Devices: MiniDragon+ development board (5V) Stepper Motors and Drivers (12V) Solenoid (12V) RF Receiver (5V) Power Source: Ten 1.2V rechargeable AA batteries in series

13. Mechanical Design Chassis Constructed from 3 mm aluminium Modular design to aid in modification of subsystems Mattner, 2005

14. Vision System Fire Wire Camera (15 FPS) Frame Vision Software The Imaging Source, 2005 Mattner, 2005 Equipment

15. Vision System Colour Identification System Pink = Centroid r1 Purple = Direction r1 Yellow = Centroid r2 Blue = Direction r2 Orange = Ball

16. Vision System Object Tracking

17. Vision System  Takes an image  Returns it to the vision software  Locates the positions  Returns them to the AI System

18. AI Software Controls all robotic movement & kicking MATLAB code & Simulink block diagrams converted to C-code Two phases of operation 1. Ball not in possession 2. Ball in possession

19. AI Software Ball Not In Possession  Assumes rate of acceleration is constant over small sample time  Loop performed every five samples

20. AI Software Ball in possession  Constant maxKick defines furthest the ball can be projected by kicker device  Ball is kicked once dist2Goal is less than maxKick  Similar algorithm for passing

21. AI Software Problem: Data reception too slow for effective closed loop navigation Solution: AI provides several instructions per iteration Development of game-play strategy limited due to lack of opposition

22. Communications System Robot instructions are sent in 8-byte telegrams via radio transceivers Signals are broadcast to all three robots on same frequency Data Transfer Rate = 12.5 instructions per second

23. Communications System Bytes 1-4: Telegram Information Contains information about the telegram itself, including target robot Bytes 5 & 6: Motor Instructions Signed Integer varying between -127 to +127 representing speed and direction for the left and right motors, respectively

24. Communications System Byte 7: Solenoid Instructions Set to 1 for energised, 0 for de-energised Byte 8: Checksum Sum of transmitted bits, which must be equal to the sum of received bits

25. Current Work Successful in achieving: Effective & cost efficient design Vision System provides object tracking AI Software with predictive motion nearing completion Communications system allows remote interaction

26. Future Work Group Aims: Functional team of three robots Perform standard soccer actions e.g. pass, shoot & dribble Ball trajectory prediction software Communications system supports continuous robot coordination

27. Future Work Recommended Development: Manufacture opposition team & develop defensive AI software Improve vision system data rates to facilitate faster game-play Incorporate strategic game-play

28. Conclusion Project budget was the most defining constraint Goals set were inherently optimistic Were able to achieve majority of all fundamental hopes for project

29. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following people Dr Frank Wörnle, our supervisor Bill, Richard and Steve from the mechanical workshop Silvio and Derek from the electronics workshop Carnegie Mellon University for the vision drivers Yasutake and Taiki from the 2005 Osaka University Team

30. Questions???