Robocup is an international robot soccer tournament, held annually. The next tournament is in Fukuoka, Japan in June, 2002. The long-term goal of Robocup is to build teams of humanoid robots that can compete against human players, but achieving that goal is a long way off. For now, Robocup consists mainly of robot-vs.-robot soccer tournaments, in four different divisions. See the main Robocup site for details.
At Yale, for the past three years, we have focused on the small-sized division of Robocup, in which robots no more than 18 cm in diameter compete on a field somewhat larger than a ping-pong table. In this division, teams are allowed to use cameras mounted over the field in order to keep track of where the robots are, and most teams take advantage of this. The vision system runs on a workstation, which sizes up the overall tactical situation, and sends commands via radio to the team members, many times a second. The rules for the small-sized league change every year.
Yale has competed in two Robocup tournaments so far: 1998 (in the middle-sized division), and 2000. We didn't get a team together in 2001, but we succeeded in designing and building a prototype of a new robot, with the ability to move in any direction, and improved feedback from the wheels. Our goal this year is to replicate this design, improve the vision system, and build a team. Getting to the next tournament is not the primary goal.
Possible Projects for Spring, 2002 :