RoboCup-2002 Sony Legged Robot League

Prepared by the RoboCup-2002 Legged Robot League Committee: 
Minoru Asada, Osaka University 
Masahiro Fujita, Sony Digital Creatures Laboratory 
Manuela Veloso, Carnegie Mellon University 
 

1. Objectives

One of the ultimate dream in robotics is to create life-like robotics systems, such as humanoid robot and animal-like legged robot. We choose to build quadruped robot because we believe that quadruped robot has major potential for future robotics including entertainment applications for personal robots. However, numbers of challenges exists before any of such robot to be fielded in the real world. Robots have to be reasonably intelligent, maintains certain level of agility, and be able to engaged in some collaborative behaviors. RoboCup is an ideal challenge to foster robotics technologies for small personal and mobile robotics system. Throughout the research and soccer games in this league, we present that this kind of technology will help not only for entertainment but non-entertainment use such like rescue robot or dangerous works instead of human, and will become effective in the future, where robots can work together. 

2. Participation in our league

RoboCup is an initiative to provide a research platform to integrate Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. RoboCup includes competitions and emphasizes the underlying research through a RoboCup workshop. 

This is a call for applications to participate in RoboCup-2002 using the Sony legged robots. Participation in RoboCup-2002 will also involve the submission of an application describing the research underlying the approach developed. 

We plan to add some new teams for Fukuoka, hence about 20 (not decided) teams will compete each other in RoboCup-2002 Sony Legged Robot League. After 2002, the competition results may reflect next year's qualification to participate in Legged League games. Evaluated their efforts or contribution to RoboCup 2002, any kind of elimination will be made for 2003. Any of the teams are to be disqualified as a result of the competition. Then qualified teams are to be eligible for participation in the next Legged League. How to select teams qualified has not been decided.

The RoboCup-2002 Sony Four Legged Robot League will take place in a green-colored carpeted field, with colored landmarks and goals. The game will be 4 on 4 robots using a small orange ball. The technical challenges of this league involve color segmentation, localization, and individual and team strategy. Rules for detail will appear soon.

The interested proponents are encouraged to acquire further information about RoboCup and about the Sony legged robots from the RoboCup Web page, http://www.robocup.org/, as well as from the technical publications. 

3. Guidelines for the Application Submission

Applications need to include: 
1. Clear statement of research interests 
2. Proposed approach to address the RoboCup challenge 
3. Background of the principal investigator 
4. Description of the team organization and effort to be spent 
5. Pointers to relevant publications 
6. Statement of commitment to enter RoboCup-2002 in Fukuoka, including known 
    sources of financial support for the participation of the team. 

When been accepted, furthermore, followings are required, 
1. Team agrees to purchase RoboCup Package (inclusion see below) 
2. Team agrees the incidental conditions with RoboCup Package. 
    -1. Non-business use of Sony Robot 
    -2. Technical report provision 
    -3. Sharing developed IP within the league and for Sony internal use 

The applications will be evaluated based on the strength of the qualifications of the team, and of the proposed approach. An additional criteria will be based on the location of the proposing institution, as we would like to have representation from different parts of world, as much as possible. 

Applications are to be submitted by email with a maximum of 5 pages to the RoboCup-2002 Sony Legged Robot Committee,
robocup-legged-com@pdp.crl.sony.co.jp
The deadline for submission of applications is November 16, 2001. Decisions will be made by the end of the month. Selected teams will need to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) with Sony. The Sony legged robots will be ready for shipment to the selected teams in January 2002. 
Here are the conditions of which you must be aware before you submit your application. 

1. RoboCup Package 2002           US$10,000 (w/o tax)    includes

Robot (hardware) : ERS-2100 RoboCup Version         4 
  including lithium ion battery and  AC adapter 
SDK (debug box) :   2
         (Software)   :    2 licences in total 
PC card for Memory Stick adapter                                2 
Memory Stick for RoboCup                                          8 
Battery charger (4 slot in one) 
Succer Field items (goals, mat and landmarks) 
Note: 
* Robot and memory stick are different from consumer model ERS-210 and exclusive for development purpose. 
** Succer field can be constructed by each team following the specification provided with the minimum necessary items above, or you can purchase complete set of field separately. 

Each university will be responsible for all expenses incurring in its transport from Japan to each university including taxes. 
Follow-up services for both software and hardware will be provided until July 25, 2002, one month after the RoboCup 2002 is over. 

However, in the following cases, you must pay despite that the warranty is valid. 

• - When damages and / or breakage are caused by misuse, improper repair or modification, or interference from another apparatus or equipment. 
• - When damages and / or breakage occur during shipment (i.e., improper handling or drop) after being shipped out from the factory. 
• - When damages and / or breakage are due to acts of God, accident, or application of abnormal voltage. 
• When the accessories get worn out 
2. The activities using the robot system must be non-business purpose. Namely, the robots, and the software can not be sold to others. The developed software can not be sold to others. 
3. The team must participate in RoboCup 2002 Sony Legged Robot League 
4. Each team is responsible for costs involved in participating at RoboCup 2002, namely travel and living expenses, and any other logistics. 
5. Each team has to agree with NDA. The main point of the NDA is that each team has to agree with non-disclosure agreement about a specification of the robots, provided software, and development environment, including APIs. 
6. Documentation, technical report and the results, should be produced as the results of the participation after RoboCup 2002.
7. Team agrees free grant to use of its IP within the league and for Sony internal use.

RoboCup-97 and RoboCup-98 included three different leagues, namely simulation, small-sized and middle-sized robots. For the last four years, Sony has been developing a robotic platform, namely the Sony legged robots. In 1998, together with RoboCup-98 in Paris, France, Sony provided their robots to three research teams to have the robots play robotic soccer, namely University of Osaka, Laboratoire de Robotique de Paris  and Carnegie Mellon University. Games were very successful. The teams demonstrated research in automated calibration for color segmentation, balanced robust legged walking, landmark-based probabilistic localization, and behavior learning by instruction. Right after RoboCup-98, Sony Legged Robot League was accepted as an official league by the RoboCup Federation, and RoboCup Legged Robot League Committee was organized. For RoboCup-99 in Stockholm, Sweden, the committee evaluated the applications submitted, and 9 teams were newly selected. In 2000, adding new 3 teams, 12 teams participated in RoboCup-2000 in Melbourne, Australia. The number of Legged team came to 16 in 2001, the 16 teams competed in Seattle, USA. RoboCup 2001  was successfully over and University of New South Wales won the championship as their 2 straight victories. For more deatil, see our web site below; 
http://www.sony.co.jp/en/SonyInfo/dream/

Technical Publications

Hiroaki Kitano, Masahiro Fujita, Stephane Zrehen , and Koji Kageyama, "Sony Legged Robot for RoboCup Challenge", In Proceedings of the IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION, IEEE, 1998, pp.2605-2612 

Manuela Veloso, William Uther, Masahiro Fujita, Minoru Asada, and Hiroaki Kitano, "Playing Soccer with Legged Robot", In Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT ROBOTS AND SYSTEMS, 1998, pp.437-442 

Please note that consumer model ERS-210 cannot be used for RoboCup.

The official website for Sony Robot Entertainment 
http://www.aibo.com/

Here you can keep up with the latest news on the Sony entertainment robot through detailed technical descriptions, schedule of events, FAQs, and much more. Complete with many photos and video clips and the site is regularly updated.