[robocup-humanoid] Humanoid League Rules for 2014 (1st Draft)

[Daniel Seifert]

Dear teams,

The Technical Committee has uploaded the first rule draft for the RoboCup
2014 competition in João Pessoa, Brazil, to the Humanoid League homepage
at http://www.tzi.de/humanoid

During the RoboCup 2013 competition in Eindhoven, the RoboCup Federation
called for a significant push in the rules towards the 2050 goal. For the
Humanoid League, this means to increase efforts to have human sized and
human-like robots play soccer in more realistic environments.

Based on the ideas and discussions at the team leader meeting in Eindhoven
during RoboCup 2013, the Technical Committee has tried to find a way to
encourage teams to increase the height of their robots. Due to significant
gaps between the size classes, we believe that a transition to a larger
size class was prohibitively complex, both in terms of cost and effort.
However, the initial ideas of merging size classes would significantly
impede the progress of the league. Instead, we decided to eliminate the
gaps between the size classes and making them overlap. We believe this
fosters a transition of teams from smaller to larger size classes, while
retaining the advantages of variously sized robots.

Starting in 2014, the size classes are defined as follows:

        KidSize: from  40cm to  90cm, 4 players
       TeenSize: from  80cm to 140cm (maximum weight 20kg), 2 players
      AdultSize: from 130cm to 180cm (minimum weight 10kg),

Due to the changes in the maximum sizes, as well as the larger KidSize
field, adjustments for the goals and field lines were required:

        KidSize: goal width (D) increased to 225cm, goal height to 110cm
                 goal area width (F) increased to 345cm
                 center circle diameter (H) increased to 150cm
                 ball diameter increased to 10cm

 Teen/AdultSize: goal width (D) increased to 300cm
                 goal area width (F) increased to 500cm

The size restrictions in the robot design have also been updated. Except
for the maximum foot area, all restrictions are now based solely on the
physical height of the robot (H_top). The foot area is now limited based
on the height of the center of mass (H_com) and has decreased for lower
values of H_com.

For all other changes, please refer to the released rule document with
marked changes. The document also includes notes where rule changes are
planned but not yet defined. We invite everybody to discuss pending
decisions, to make additional suggestions and give feedback. Only in
this way, the rules will be able to address the concerns of all teams.
Please provide feedback via the HL mailing list.


Sent on behalf of the
Humanoid League Technical Committee
Carlos Acosta, Jacky Baltes, Sven Behnke, Luis F. Lupian,
Marcell Missura, Soroush Sadeghnejad and Daniel Seifert