Embedded Linux is not just for basic devices anymore. The world of robotics, Linux could be king it would appear. Enter the RoboCup. Not to be confused with a jockstrap for our robotic friends, the RoboCup is a series of events created to promote robotic efforts.

Introduction

The Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences (RoboCup) are a series of competitions and events designed to promote the full integration of AI (artificial intelligence) and robotics research. Robotic soccer provides a good test-bed for evaluating various research, including AI, robotics, image processing, engineering, and multi-agent systems.

The SJTU “JiaoLong” team has participated in a number of soccer competitions, and its robots have performed well. Competitions include the 2002 China Retail Conference (CRC) in Shanghai, China; RoboCup 2003 in Padua, Italy; CRC 2003 in BeiJin, China; RoboCup 2004 in Lisbon, Portugal; and CRC 2004 in GuangZhou, China.

Our Robots

Our robots were constructed at SJTU Research Institute of Robotics as part of a project to build real-time, inexpensive, autonomous robots for the study of multi-robot systems operating under dynamic and uncertain environments. The main idea for designing the whole multi-robot system was to view each robot as an autonomous physical entity capable of intelligently interacting with changing, variable surroundings. The robot must also be physically strong, computationally fast, and behaviorally accurate.

The hardware system consists of a robot vehicle system, sensing system, communication system, and control system.