[robocup-legged] 11x11 RoboCup match

[William Uther]

Hi all,
   I'm glad there is some interest in the 11x11 match.  Issues that  
have been raised:

- Lighting
   Yes, we will need enough lighting for the AIBOs to see.

- Field
   The 2005 mid-sized field was about double the size of the legged  
league field (linear dimensions).  I suggest we just go with that.   
The only change would be the size of the centre circle.  The mid  
sized one is a little large for AIBOs (2m diameter as opposed to 30cm  
diameter).  I suggest say, 60cm diameter?
   We could use mid-sized locations for the 'restart points', but use  
them as the end-points of the legged-league 'throw-in lines'.

- Landmarks
   My original thought was that we would have Mid-Sized landmarks  
unmodified, but I have no objections to making mid-size-league sized  
landmarks, but with legged-league style markings.  We could go back  
to having 6 landmarks as well.  I think that the increased landmark  
size should enough that these can be seen across the field, but we  
need to check (I haven't head from anyone with a mid-sized landmark  
and an AIBO yet).  We've doubled the linear dimensions of the field,  
so landmarks ~4 times higher and double the diameter should still be  
visible, right?  Yes, there will be an associated loss of absolute  
localisation accuracy, but the relative accuracy should be similar.

- Ball
   I was assuming we stay with a legged league ball.  You will not be  
able to see it from very far away, but you will be able to spread  
your team out and communicate to find it.  We don't want to have to  
re-develop ball manipulation skills.

- Goals
   I have no idea what width to make the goals.  The goalie is still  
an AIBO with limited speed, but a goal the size of the legged league  
goal would look silly.  Making a third size of goal somewhere in  
between means we make to make another set of goals.  I'd start with  
mid-size goals, but am open to suggestions.

- Communications
   I was planning to have something simple like that used in the  
rUNSWift/NUBots open challenge last year.  That was a UDP broadcast  
packet.  Each robot would broadcast:
   - Its team and player number
   - Its own location and covariance matrix
   - Whether the robot can sense the ball, and if so, the ball's mean  
location and covariance matrix
     - "sensing the ball" includes both visual sensing and whatever  
other mechanisms you have to detect the ball, e.g. the mouth or IR  
sensor during a grab.
   - The current destination of this robot.  This might be the  
location of the ball, or a location on the field.

I don't know that we need much else.  We might want an: "I'm going to  
kick the ball here", section in the packet.  I wouldn't want too much  
more than that: Keep It Simple and Stupid.  We didn't used any more  
than this in our pick-up open challenge last year.  Teams that want  
to use more certainly could - amongst those robots using that code base.

- Game Controller
   Yes, we'd need a modified game controller that could handle  
11x11.  I don't think the packet format needs to be changed, except  
for increasing the size of one array.  We could come up with a  
general format that included the number of players on each team.   
Then the same packet would be used in normal games and the 11x11  
game.  The tricker part is re-designing the UI in the GameController  
program itself, but I don't see this as a huge issue.

- Rules
   Rules would be similar to the legged league rules.  i.e. there  
would be no off-side concept.  The only ones that I think really need  
to change are kick-off rules.  Even those changes can be kept simple:  
rather than being behind the 1/4 line, you must be 2m from the centre  
line.

- Physical setup.
   This is the part that requires extra work.  And the answer at this  
point is: I don't know who would build the landmarks, make numbers,  
etc.  If the landmarks are simply re-coloured mid-sized landmarks  
then that isn't much extra work - it is really extra cost, and that  
decision is made by people on other committees.

Finally, I'd like to comment on expected performance.  Simulation  
league teams have very high standards of play for 11x11 matches.  We  
have high quality low level skills.  The real issue is testing time,  
especially given the pickup part of the demonstration.

Because of the almost complete lack of testing time, I'm not going to  
be disappointed if the standard isn't wonderful.  While we want to  
make this as good as we can, if we worry too much about all the  
things that could go wrong then people might decide not to bother.  I  
don't want that to happen.  It is much better to have something that  
we can build on for future years than to make this a perfect game of  
soccer.

Is there anything I missed?

Will            :-}