Team of Autonomous Four-Legged Robots Playing Soccer




Summary

The development of a successful team of cooperating autonomous, four-legged robots in a dynamic environment requires significant research in motion control (running, standing up, turning, kicking etc. with four legs), perception (real-time image processing, self and object localisation etc.), and behavior control (searching for or tracking the ball, behaviors for attackers, defenders and goalie, cooperative team behaviors etc.).

The RoboCup scenario of competing teams of autonomous robots provides a research challenge in this field. The teams participating in the Sony Legged Robot League must face additional difficulties not present in the other small and middle size leagues whose custom-made robots locomote on wheels. For example, there is no global vision system available. Furthermore, the hardware of all robots is identical (neither camera system nor other parts may be changed). Finally, it is much more difficult to implement fast and stable robot locomotions on legs than on wheels.

In 2001 the German Team has been founded as a cooperative effort of several German universities to meet the many challenges through cooperative and distributed development. The Darmstadt Dribbling Dackels is the RoboCup Team of the TU Darmstadt which participates in the Sony Legged Robot League and in the German Team. It was founded in May, 2001.

Videos

AVI file (96 MB), MPEG file (11 MB) (from 2001)

Much more and more recent videos can be found at the media page of the Darmstadt Dribbling Dackels.

Relevant Publications

For more and recent publications see the list of publications.

Fachgebiet Simulation und Systemoptimierung, TU Darmstadt