[robocup-small] RoboCup 2018 Changes
Christian Lobmeier
pardinensis at gmail.com
Wed Nov 15 13:12:48 EST 2017
Hey everyone,
The SSL is in a challenging state right now. Especially in comparison to
other leagues, the SSL suffers from a distinct lack of innovation and
progress. The technical challenges are mostly ignored, the mixed team
challenge has been an absolute catastrophe and even the competition games
looked similar to 5 years ago.
If we want to be able to contribute something to the oft-cited goal of
2050, we need changes, big changes. And we need to start to make these
changes now. So without further ado, lets get right down to business.
1.
Divisions
Starting in 2018, the Small Size League will be divided into two divisions
with separate tournaments: Division A and division B. Division A is aimed
at advanced teams whereas new and/or less competitive teams can play in
division B. Each team will only play in one of those two divisions. When
submitting the qualification material, the team also chooses a preferred
division including a short rationale. The OC will have the final word. We
are aiming at around 12 teams per division.
There are multiple benefits of having two divisions.
-
The SSL has a rather high entry barrier. Our goal is to further advance
the league while keeping the entry barrier at a reasonable level. With
splitting the league, we can challenge seasoned teams while still being
attractive for newcomers. The qualification criteria for the division B can
even be lowered a bit without hurting the competition.
-
Feedback from this year’s RoboCup has shown that it is very important
for teams to face off against opponents of similar skill. Dividing the
league into two divisions rids a lot of the one sided games in exchange for
more interesting match-ups.
1.
Increased number of robots
This change applies to division A only. The intermediate-term goal of the
SSL is to be the first league to play 11v11 with actual robots (discounting
the simulation leagues). To achieve this goal, division A will play with 8
robots per team by 2018 and with 11 robots by 2019 or 2020.
1.
Increased field size
This change applies to division A only. To provide enough space for 8 (and
later on 11) robots, the field size will be increased. There are no final
decisions regarding the concrete dimensions, mostly because we don’t know
yet how much space the SSL is allowed to allocate. The current plan is to
double the size of the field (to 9x12m) while increasing the width of the
goal by 20 percent (to 1.20m). The defense area will also be increased by
20 percent in each dimension compared to the smaller field. Division B will
still use a 6x9m field.
1.
Rectangular defense area
This change applies to both divisions. Speaking of the defense area, it is
time to introduce some changes there. Every single team uses some sort of
defenders that always move along the defense area. It is obviously a very
effective defense strategy and rather easy to implement. To make the
defense more interesting, the shape of the defense area will be changed to
a rectangle (2.40x1.20m for the large field, 2.00x1.00m for the small
field). The rules regarding the defense area will stay the same. This means
that attackers and defenders are still allowed to move through the defense
area as long as they don’t touch the ball.
1.
Reduced ball speed
This change applies to both divisions. Even though the field increases
quite a bit for division A, the maximum allowed ball speed will be reduced
from 8m/s to 6.5m/s.
Currently, it is very common to score goals from large distance, even
against strong teams. The reason is that the ball is fast enough to make it
through a hole in the defense without the defenders being able to react in
time. This is not a bad thing by itself, the defense should just anticipate
passes and future attack maneuvers. However, the offense is currently very
one-dimensional. It all boils down to finding or forcing a hole in the
defense and exploiting it. There is only little advantage gained by being
able to bring the ball towards the opponent goal without losing possession
or getting marked. By reducing the maximum ball speed, long distance shots
are less likely to succeed resulting in a stronger focus on positional play.
The signature high pace of our league will not be affected by this change.
First, the viewer will most likely not even notice the difference in shoot
speed and second, the high pace is not affected by the speed of the robots
or the speed of the ball, but of the frequency of actions (e.g. passes,
goal shots).
1.
Excellence Award
The RoboCup unites two very different ideas: research in robotics and a
soccer competition. While it usually synergizes quite well, there are some
conflicts when it comes to the actual goals and motivations. The goals of
the RoboCup is to promote research and innovation and advance the field of
robotics as a whole. A major goal of the teams is to win the competition.
The problem is that investing time into research does not necessarily
improve the results in the RoboCup competition, especially if the new ideas
don’t work out as intended. Instead, the most effective way to succeed is
to only make small, incremental changes and use tested and trusted
technologies. Thankfully, a lot of teams do actual research and try out new
technologies. To honor that, we will introduce the Excellence Award.
The Excellence Award is a judged award given to teams that show a lot of
overall skill and dedication to the long-term goals of the RoboCup. The
criteria include:
-
Performance in competition games
-
Performance in Technical Challenges
-
Sportsmanship
-
Research Contributions
-
Innovation
This Excellence Award will be the most important award given out to SSL
teams on the RoboCup. More information regarding awards will be released in
spring.
1.
Qualification process
Obviously, the (E)TDP is a central part of the qualification and is used to
determine whether a team is able to participate or not. However, in 2017
the (E)TDPs and their reviews have been ignored for the qualification
results. This won’t happen next year. Each team is required to submit a
(E)TDP that follows the given guidelines
<http://wiki.robocup.org/Small_Size_League/RoboCup_2018/Qualification>. If
the paper lacks quality, the team will only be conditionally qualified and
has the chance to incorporate the feedback into the paper. If the second
version does not improve significantly, the team will not be qualified for
the RoboCup.
Since the RoboCup is in June, the whole qualification process will start
earlier this year:
-
TDP Submission Deadline: January 16, 2018
-
TDP Peer Review Deadline: February 2, 2018
1.
Additional changes
The following rule changes will be made this year, the points below are a
summary of the changes and may differ slightly from the final text in the
rules.
-
Only linear shots can be used to score a goal. If the ball height
exceeds the robot height between the last contact of an attacker and the
crossing of the goal line, the goal will not be scored.
-
Automatic ball placement becomes mandatory for division A.
-
The collision rule will be reworked. If two robots collide with a
relative speed of more than 1.5m/s, the faster robot committed a foul.
-
The bar above the goal will be removed to provide better vision in the
goal.
-
If two teams want to collaborate and appear and participate as one, they
will now be able to register as a joint team.
We are aware that these changes mean a lot of work for everyone, but we
think that they are necessary to improve our league as a whole. If you have
any criticism, good or bad, or if some points are not clear to you, don't
hesitate to write us a mail. Even though these changes are the result of
months of discussion, nothing is written in stone, yet.
Cheers,
Christian Lobmeier
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.cc.gatech.edu/pipermail/robocup-small/attachments/20171115/f2e55f8e/attachment-0001.html>
More information about the robocup-small
mailing list