Building integrated robots for soccer competition

Middle sized robot soccer competition provides an excellent opportunity for distributed robotic systems. In particular, a team of dog sized robot players must perform real time visual recognition, navigate in a dynamic field, track moving objects and collaborate with teammates (R.C. Arkin, 1987). Our design philosophy for the system architecture is that we view each robot as a complete and active physical entity, who can intelligently maneuver and perform in realistic and challenging surroundings. In order to survive the rapidly changing environment in a soccer game, each robot must be physically strong, computationally fast, and behaviorally accurate. Considerable importance is given to an individual robot´s ability to perform on its own without any off-board resources such as global, birds eye view cameras or remote computing processors. Each robot´s behavior must base on its own sensor data, decision making software, and eventually communication with teammates.