[robocup-legged] Rule Changes and Poll

[Oskar von Stryk]

Dear Teams,

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006, walter.nistico at uni-dortmund.de wrote:
<...>
> According to the previous periodicity, this year should be the target of
> major innovations, and some people advocates the need to show that our
> league is on the cutting edge of scientific innovation to send a strong
> signal to the RoboCup Committee, which might otherwise decide to discontinue
> the league altogether; others instead feel that it is more important to
> offer high quality games as a kind of "swan's song" of a league which has
> always been characterized by its spectacular and entertaining games.

I am afraid that under the current limitation of the Aibo's vision
the variant "3) no beacons" (although very appealing) incorporates
the highest risk of not to achieve the goal of major innovations and 
high quality games in 2007. 

Localization on the field without beacons and without walls
we have so far only seen implemented under the conditions of an open 
challenge. But this is quite different to game conditions (with multiple 
robots fighting for the ball). 

If the robots cannot localize robustly in a game
the quality of the game will suffer severly and instead of a big leap 
forward it may be a big leap backward to the quality of games
as in the first years of the 4L.
This would be disappointing to see in the last year of the Aibos.

Having some beacons remaining would certainly reduce the risk of 
many low quality games.
Other alternatives to the suggested 4 variants could be to use
the non unique beacons which are used in the middle size and humanoid 
league. Or to introduce more natural landmarks, for example, 
banners or adds or logos (of sponsors or the leagues) (in suitable colors 
and shape) around the fields or other kinds of objects suited as 
natural landmarks in a human environment (e.g. colored baskets). 

With best regards,
Oskar von Stryk
(Darmstadt Dribbling Dackels, Member of GermanTeam)