RoboCup Small Size League

Description

RoboCup is a international initiative to promote research in artificial intelligence and autonomous mobile robots. Each year the RoboCup Foundation hosts international tournaments where top research groups of Universities from the whole world participate.

Since 2008, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg also has its own RoboCup team that participates in the small-size league. This league is one of the smallest and fastest RoboCup leagues. Five wheeled robots per team are playing on a field of about 6m x 4m. The maximum size for each robot is 18cm in diameter and a height of 15 cm. The robots get information about the current game situation from two cameras above the field and an external computer, which communicates with the robots via a wireless link.

In Erlangen, the team ER-Force (all games can be found here), is organized as an interdisciplinary student project at the Technical Department. The main goals of this project are to foster creative ideas and team work among technical students from electrical engineering, mechatronics and computer science. Research topics include topics from pattern recognition, embedded systems and artificial intelligence. In the scope of this project the Pattern Recognition Lab employs statistical estimation techniques and tries to extend them towards automotive applications.

To promote the project, a non-profit organisation called Robotics Activitis e.V. was founded in 2008. In this organization team, members as well as supporters of the group are brought together. The project is funded in part by tuition fees as well as private and industry donations.

Publications