[robocup-humanoid] Standard platform league

Thomas Röfer Thomas.Roefer at dfki.de
Wed Sep 5 17:03:57 EDT 2007


Hi,

as Cetin already explained, the defining property of the Standard Platform
League is that all teams use the same kind of robot, and no hardware changes
are allowed. So it is a competition of software only. The advantages are
that teams can concentrate on the development of algorithms, software can be
exchanged between teams (which happened quite a lot), and teams can run the
code of other teams on their own robots, e.g. the code of the previous world
champion as a preparation for the next competition. In that aspect the
Standard Platform League is similar to the Soccer Simulation League or the
two Rescue Simulation Leagues, but with real robots.

The Standard Platform League now exists for 10 years, but since so far the
standard platform always was a model of the Sony AIBO, it was called the
Four-Legged League before (or even "Sony Four-Legged League" when Sony still
organized the league). Sony stopped selling the AIBO last year, so the
league could not continue using AIBOs. Therefore, the RoboCup Federation
made an open call for possible successors. There were many criteria, one of
them was that the robot should provide "many degrees of freedom", which
basically ruled out wheeled robots, but included two-, four-, or six-legged
ones. We had nine applications (2 two-legged, 6 four-legged, and one hybrid
between both), six of which reached a state in which actual robots could be
presented in Atlanta. The selection committee selected a 2-legged robot, the
Nao from Aldebaran Robotics that will go into production in the beginning of
next year.

The goal of the league is to have 4 vs. 4 games in 2008, and even more
robots in 2009. The basic motivation here is that buying robots is easier
than building them, so the SPL could always be the league that experiments
with larger number of robots. In addition, since all teams have the same
robots, forming joint teams is quite easy. There already were (poor) 11 vs.
11 demonstration games with the AIBO.

I assume that Aldebaran Robotics has no intention to form their own RoboCup
team. However, teams with Naos can apply for the participation in the
Humanoid Kid-Size League. Currently, there are four main obstacles:

- In 2008, teams will get their Naos too late to be able to meet the
qualification deadline of the Humanoid League. However, they can apply with
other robots, and mention that they may switch to Naos later.

- The Nao is white. Since the Standard Platform League will not allow any
hardware change, painting the robots black will prevent teams from starting
in the SPL.

- It is not 100% sure that the Nao fits in a cylinder with a diameter of 55%
of its height. If it holds its arms straight down, it does not, because of
the size of its sleeves. However, since there are 4 DOFs in each arm, it may
be possible to puzzle it in the cylinder somehow.

- The size of the feet is too big. According to the data we currently have
from Aldebaran Robotics, they are not too big in relation to height of the
center of mass, but only in relation to the overall height of the robot.
Anyway, either the robot wears sandals with smaller soles or Aldebaran
provides a different set of feet or the rules are changed, the Nao will be
somehow be compatible with the Humanoid Kid-Size League.

There will be a call for participation soon and we will not only post it to
the robocup-legged mailing list, but also to this one. We will also put the
call at http://www.tzi.de/spl.

Best regards

Thomas Röfer

_______________________________________________________________________
Dr. Thomas Röfer                   Office Address:
DFKI-Lab Bremen                    Universität Bremen
Safe and Secure Cognitive Systems  Cartesium 02.054
Robert-Hooke-Str. 5                Enrique-Schmidt-Str. 5
28359 Bremen, Germany              28359 Bremen, Germany
http://www.dfki.de                 www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~roefer

Phone: +49 (421) 218-64200
Fax:   +49 (421) 218-9864200
eMail: Thomas.Roefer at dfki.de
_______________________________________________________________
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Firmensitz: Trippstadter Straße 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern

Geschäftsführung:
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vorsitzender)
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