Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 7416

Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science

LNAI Series Editors

Randy GoebelUniversity of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Yuzuru TanakaHokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

Wolfgang WahlsterDFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

LNAI Founding Series Editor

Joerg SiekmannDFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

Thomas Röfer N. Michael MayerJesus Savage Uluç Saranlı (Eds.)

RoboCup 2011:Robot SoccerWorld Cup XV

13

Series Editors

Randy Goebel, University of Alberta, Edmonton, CanadaJörg Siekmann, University of Saarland, Saarbrücken, GermanyWolfgang Wahlster, DFKI and University of Saarland, Saarbrücken, Germany

Volume Editors

Thomas RöferDeutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, Cyber-Physical SystemsEnrique-Schmidt-Str. 528359 Bremen, GermanyE-mail: thomas.roefer@dfki.de

Norbert Michael MayerNational Chung Cheng University, Department of Electrical Engineering168 University Road62102 Min-Hsiung, Chia-Yi, TaiwanE-mail: mikemayer@ccu.edu.tw

Jesus SavageUniversidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Bio-Robotics LaboratoryCP 04250 Mexico, D.F., MexicoE-mail: robotssavage@gmail.com

Uluç SaranlıMiddle East Technical University Ankara, Department of Computer Engineering06531 Ankara, TurkeyE-mail: saranli@ceng.metu.edu.tr

ISSN 0302-9743 e-ISSN 1611-3349ISBN 978-3-642-32059-0 e-ISBN 978-3-642-32060-6DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-32060-6Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012942791

CR Subject Classification (1998): I.2, C.2.4, D.2.7, H.5, I.4, J.4

LNCS Sublibrary: SL 7 – Artificial Intelligence]

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material isconcerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting,reproduction on microfilms or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publicationor parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965,in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liableto prosecution under the German Copyright Law.The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply,even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective lawsand regulations and therefore free for general use.

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Preface

Fifteen years ago, RoboCup started with the vision “By the mid-21st century, ateam of fully autonomous humanoid soccer players shall win the soccer game [..]against the winner of the most recent World Cup,” a landmark project that hasattracted a large number of international researchers over the years, the RoboCupcommunity. Since the beginning, enormous progress has been made. RoboCup hasalso broadened its focus by addressing education (RoboCupJunior) as well as re-search fields closer to applications (RoboCupRescue and RoboCup@Home).

The RoboCup Symposium is the scientific core meeting of the RoboCupcommunity. While the RoboCup competitions and demonstrations showcase theeffectiveness of the systems in practice, the RoboCup Symposium answers thequestion of how they work. Each year the RoboCup Symposium is held ona different continent. In 2011, with Istanbul playing host, the 15th RoboCupSymposium became the first to take place on two continents at once.

We decided to organize the Symposium as a single track conference in 2011.The great advantage of this is that it allowed all participants to attend all sessionsof the symposium. Thus, we blured the classic separation of RoboCup intothe three major areas of soccer, rescue, and service robotics. To further blurthese distinctions, oral presentations in the three sessions were not divided byparticular topic, but jumped between different areas and leagues. This approachdemonstrated the breadth and depth of research within the RoboCup communityand is reflected by the sequence of the papers in this book.

The consequence of a single-track schedule is that it results in a smallernumber of talks. This was offset by presenting the majority of papers duringtwo poster sessions, which allowed for greater interactions between presentersand their audience. To underline the importance of the poster presentations andto make the participants’ choice about which posters to visit more informed,each poster session was preceded by a plenary presentation of so-called posterteasers, i.e., micro-talks of one minute and one slide per poster.

For the 15th RoboCup Symposium, we received 97 paper submissions, cover-ing all areas of RoboCup research. All papers were carefully reviewed by theInternational Program Committee. Each submission was examined by threemembers of the Program Committee and the final decision was made by theCo-chairs. Twelve papers were selected for oral presentation and 32 for posterpresentation. The authors Jorg Stuckler and Sven Behnke received the best pa-per award for their contribution on “Compliant Task-Space Control with Back-Drivable Servo Actuators.”

The RoboCup Symposium has a long tradition of inviting keynote speakersfrom outside the RoboCup community who have made outstanding contribu-tions in the field of artificial intelligence. The speakers at the RoboCup 2011Symposium, Luc Steels and Dieter Fox, talked about their ongoing research.

VI Preface

Luc works on language processing and humanoid robots, and asked the ques-tion “When Will They Start to Speak?”. Dieter discussed the most talked-aboutsensor of the previous year in his keynote entitled “RGB-D Cameras: Challengesand Opportunities”.

Another symposium tradition is the panel discussion. In contrast to previousyears, where the panelists were usually RoboCup officials, in 2011 the leaders ofsome of the winning teams discussed the question “What Does It Really Take toWin?”. The goal will be to develop a general perspective on the challenges ofRoboCup built from the insights of the competition winners and their methodsand approaches. They were also invited to contribute to this book with one paperper league. These“Champion Papers”were reviewed by members of the technicalcommittees of the respective leagues and those accepted start the main part ofthis book.

We want to thank the RoboCup Organizing Committee for making the localarrangements, which worked out very well. In particular we want to thank theGeneral Chair for RoboCup 2011, H. Levent Akin, and his Co-chairs, CetinMericli and Tekin Mericli. We would also like to thank the organizers of theprevious RoboCup Symposium, who were very helpful and let us benefit fromtheir experience. Further, we would like to thank all of the Program Committeemembers for their hard work and the great job of reviewing they did. Last butnot least, we want to thank all of the authors for their contributions. The nextRoboCup competition will run during June 18–24, 2012, in Mexico City withthe conjoint symposium taking place on June 24.

March 2012 Thomas RoferNorbert Michael Mayer

Jesus SavageUluc Saranlı

RoboCup Leagues in 2011

RoboCup consists of the four main areas RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue,RoboCup@Home, and RoboCupJunior. Most of these areas are divided into anumber of leagues that address different aspects of their overall research goals.While RoboCupJunior is presented on pages 63ff., the major leagues are de-scribed by their RoboCup Executive Committee members on the following pages.

Soccer Simulation League

Akiyama, Hideisa AIST, JapanDorer, Klaus Hochschule Offenburg, GermanyTalay, Sanem Sariel Istanbul Technical University, Turkey

Soccer Small Size League

Akar, Mehmet Bogazici University, TurkeySukvichai, Kanjanapan Kasetsart University, ThailandWeitzenfeld, Alfredo USF Polytechnic, USA

Soccer Middle Size League

Cunha, Bernardo University of Aveiro, PortugalMerry, Roel Eindhoven University of Technology,

The NetherlandsTakemura, Yasunori Nippon Bunri University, Japan

Soccer Standard Platform League

Lagoudakis, Michail Technical University of Crete, GreeceLee, Daniel University of Pennsylvania, USAHall, Brad University of New South Wales, AustraliaKaminka, Gal Bar Ilan University, Israel

Soccer Humanoid League

Baltes, Jacky University of Manitoba, CanadaLupian, Luis F. Universidad La Salle, MexicoBehnke, Sven University of Bonn, Germany

Rescue Robot League

Pellenz, Johannes University of Koblenz-Landau, GermanyKimura, Tetsuya Nagaoka University of Technology, JapanMihankhah, Ehsan K. N. Toosi University of Technology, IranSuthakorn, Jackrit Mahidol University, Thailand

VIII RoboCup Leagues in 2011

Rescue Simulation League

Ito, Nobuhiro Aichi Institute of Technology, JapanBalakirsky, Stephen NIST, USAKleiner, Alexander Freiburg University, Germany

@Home League

Iocchi, Luca Sapienza University of Rome, ItalyRuiz-de-Solar, Javier Universidad de Chile, Chilevan der Zant, Tijn University of Groningen, The NetherlandsSugiura, Komei NICT, Japan

Soccer Simulation League

Soccer Simulation is split into two subleagues: 2D simulation and 3D simulation.

2D Simulation

In 2D simulation, two teams of 11 simulated autonomous player agents and acoach agent play a game of soccer with very realistic rules and game play. In2011, two major changes were introduced: the red card rule and the improvedball catch model for goalie agents. When a player performs an intentional foulcommand, an automatic referee might detect the red card rule. In that case, theplayer is sent off the field and the team has to reconsider its strategy.

The current major research topics in 2D simulation are flexibility and anonline adaptation. Some teams introduced new approaches such as an onlinetactics planning method and a strategy management using a coach agent. Infuture competitions, online coaching techniques will become more important inorder to adapt to the environment.

In all, 20 teams from 11 countries passed the qualification and finally 17teams participated in the 2D competition. The winner was WrightEagle fromthe University of Science and Technology of China (China), followed by HELIOSfrom Fukuoka University, Osaka Prefecture University and AIST (Japan), andMarliK from University of Guilan (Iran).

3D Simulation

In 3D simulation, simulated Nao robots play in a physically realistic 3D environ-ment. It is therefore more similar to real robot leagues than 2D simulation yethas the advantages of simulation that allow one to play in big teams, simplifylearning approaches, and simplify robot model changes.

The 2011 competition introduced a couple of new features. The games wererun in 9 vs. 9 player mode (was 6 vs. 6 in 2010). The field size was increased tokeep the space per player roughly constant. New crowding rules were introducedto keep the number of players approaching the ball at a reasonable level. If twoplayers of the same team are closer than 1 m to the ball, the farther of thetwo is beamed outside the field by the automated referee. Also, the number ofdefenders inside the goal area was limited to two. Both changes improved game

RoboCup Leagues in 2011 IX

quality considerably. Moreover, a new visualization software, roboViz, was usedto show the games. Appart from high-end 3D graphics, it was used for the firsttime to allow spectators to watch the games in 3D using a specialized beamerand 3D glasses.

Technically, teams showed improved walking skills, a new skill to kick the ballhigh, a skill to kick the ball while running, backward pull kicks, and improvedget-up behaviors.

In all, 22 teams from 12 countries participated in the 3D simulation competi-tion. The winner was UTAustinVilla from the University of Texas (USA) followedby CIT3D from Changzhou Institute of Technology (China) and Apollo3D fromNanjing University (China).

Soccer Small Size League

The Small Size League (SSL) is one of the more exciting leagues of RoboCup,as two teams each consisting of 5 robots with limited size (max height 15 cm,max diameter 18 cm) play soccer at a high pace with an orange golf ball on a6.05 m-by-4.0 5m green carpeted field. All objects on the field are tracked bya standardized vision system and off-field computers are used to communicatereferee commands and position information to the robots. In SSL, building asuccessful team requires clever design, implementation, and integration of manyhardware and software sub-components into a robustly functioning whole; hence,SSL soccer remains a very interesting and challenging domain for research andeducation.

The journey to SSL 2011 started when 28 teams from 12 different countriesdeclared their interest in participation by submitting a pre-registration note byJanuary 31, 2011. The deadline for submission of team description papers andvideos for all teams was the end of February, after which 21 teams were choosento participate in the tournament while two teams were conditionally qualified,with the requirement that they would demonstrate sufficient game play beforethe games started. Later, two teams dropped out owing to financial problems;however, the remaining 20 teams from 11 countries participated in RoboCup2011. These 20 teams listed in Table 1 played each other first in four groups andthen the games continued based on elimination starting from the second round,at the end of which team Skuba was the winner, Immortals the runner up, andMRL got the third place.

Two technical challenges (Dynamic Navigation and Mixed Team Match) anda (Large Field) demo was held in Istanbul 2011. The aim of the Dynamic Naviga-tion technical challenge, was to examine the ability of robots to safely navigate ina dynamic environment (Winner: Skuba, 2nd place: MRL, 3rd place: Thunder-bots). The Mixed Team Match technical challenge, which was also won by teamSkuba, was a full match between mixed teams, each composed of five robots fromtwo different SSL teams. The Large Field demo was carried out on a larger fieldtwice as big as the regular one, with the objective of exploring the possibility ofcarrying out future SSL games on larger fields.

X RoboCup Leagues in 2011

Table 1. Teams that participated in SSI 2011

Country of Origin Teams

Brazil RoboFEI

Canada Thunderbots

China ZjuNlict

Colombia STOxs, Bochica

Germany ER-Force, Tigers Mannheim

Iran Immortals, MRL, Parsian, Cyrus

Japan RoboDragons, KIKS, ODENS

Mexico Eagle Knights

Thailand Skuba

Turkey BRocks, RoboTurk

USA RoboJackets, RFC Cambridge

Soccer Middle Size League

The Middle Size League is, for the time being, the best interface league betweenSimulated 2D Soccer and real, fully autonomous, nonhumanoid robots. In thisleague robots of up to 50 cm in diameter and 80 cm in height play soccer inteams of up to five robots, using a regular size FIFA soccer ball on a field sim-ilar to a scaled human soccer field (currently 18 m × 12 m). Robots are fullyautonomous with all sensors on-board. Cooperation is established by means oflimited bandwidth wireless communication between team robots, and betweenrobots and a nonoperated computer base station that can act as a coach. Nohuman interaction with the robots is allowed. The current research focus is oncooperation at all levels, from team coordination using dynamic role assignmentto attack and defense planning, going through active in game ball passing. Coop-eration between heterogeneous robots, 3D efficient fast robotic vision, immunityto environment variable conditions (such as illumination changes), and percep-tion levels are among other lines of research in this league.

The 2011 event presented some significant achievements mostly in the coop-eration area, with a growing number of teams performing active in game passing,and in robustness and reliability of hardware and software (the first game everplayed without the need to remove any robot from the field during the over-all game). A demonstration on how to incorporate software from 2D simulationin robot team coordination using dynamic role and positioning assignment androle-based set-plays won the Scientific Challenge, while Hibikino-Musashi wonthe Technical Challenge involving playing with arbitrary colored balls, dribblingwhile navigating on a cluttered area, and team play with passing and scoring.

A total of 15 teams qualified for the 2011 RoboCup event. From those,12 actually participated in the competition, representing teams from Europe,Asia, Middle East, and Australia. The competition was organized in three roundrobins followed by Mid-Finals and the Final. Table 2 shows the top eight finalclassification.

RoboCup Leagues in 2011 XI

Table 2. Final classification

Rank Team Origin Country

1 Water Beijing I. S. T. University China

2 Tech United Eindhoven Eindhoven University of Technology The Netherlands

3 CAMBADA IEETA/DETI, University of Aveiro Portugal

4 RFC Stuttgart University of Stuttgart Germany

5 MRL Qazvin Islamic Azad University Iran

6 Hibikino-Musashi University of Kitakyushu Japan

7 Carpe Noctem University of Kassel Germany

8 ISePorto LSA-ISEP Portugal

Soccer Standard Platform League

The Standard Platform League (SPL) [www.tzi.de/spl] of the RoboCup com-petition is unique among the robot soccer leagues, in that all participating teamscompete with identical robot platforms, thereby accentuating advances in algo-rithmic development for fully autonomous robots. The current standard platformis the humanoid NAO robot, a 21 degrees-of-freedom bipedal robot measuring58 cm in height and weighing 4.3 kg, built by Aldebaran Robotics in Paris,France.

Fig. 1. The SPL championship match held at RoboCup 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey.

The 2011 SPL soccer competition attracted 27 teams representing universitiesfrom across Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Australia. Thesoccer tournament featured two separate round robin qualifying rounds, with theensuing final eight teams playing in the elimination round. The games consistedof autonomous teams (of four robots each) playing against each other with anorange hockey ball on a 4×6-m green soccer field with yellow and blue goalposts,solely using visual, ultrasonic, and proprioceptive sensors. The matches consistedof two 10-minute halves, with ties broken via penalty kick shootouts in theelimination round. The winners of the 2011 SPL soccer competition were:

XII RoboCup Leagues in 2011

1. B-Human, Universitat Bremen and DFKI Bremen, Germany2. Nao Devils Dortmund, TU Dortmund, Germany3. NTU RobotPAL, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

In a separate open technical challenge competition, teams displayed interestingresearch in the field of autonomous robots. The winners were determined byvotes from all participating teams, with the following results:

1. RoboEireann, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland2. Noxious-Kouretes, University of Wales, UK, Oxford University, UK, TU

Crete, Greece3. rUNSWift, The University of New South Wales, Australia

The league also held a fun, unofficial challenge of a robot speed race from thecorners to the center of the field. Discussion on future SPL competitions focusedon less structured fields, uniformly colored goals, and teams with more robots.

Soccer Humanoid League

In the Humanoid League, mostly self-constructed robots with a human-like bodyplan compete in three size classes: KidSize (<60 cm), TeenSize (100–120cm),and AdultSize (>130 cm). While the KidSize and Teensize robots are playingsoccer games with three or two players per team, respectively, the AdultSizerobots engage in 1 vs. 1 Dribble &Kick competitions. In addition, all three classesface technical challenges, such as dribbling the ball through an obstacle course,double-passing, and throw-in of the ball. In the RoboCup 2011 competitions, 22KidSize teams, three TeenSize teams, and seven AdultSize teams participated.

The challenges of playing soccer with humanoid robots include fast and flex-ible bipedal locomotion, controlling dynamic full-body motions, maintainingbalance in the presence of disturbances, robust visual perception of the gamesituation, individual soccer skills, and team coordination. The 2011 competitionshowed notable progress in both individual robot skills and team play.

One of the highlights of the KidSize class was shown by the goalie of teamDarmstadt Dribblers: During a match, the robot picked up the ball and threw itacross the field. Another notable development was the introduction of DARwIn-OP, an open humanoid robot, developed by Virginia Tech and University ofPennsylvania and commercialized by the Korean company Robotis. This robotperformed very well and consequently Team DARwIn (USA) won the KidSizesoccer tournament. Runner-up was CIT Brains (Japan) and the third place wentto Darmstadt Dribblers (Germany), who also won the KidSize technical chal-lenges. In the TeenSize class, the playing field was enlarged to 9×6m. TeamNimbRo of the University of Bonn (Germany), played with two robots: Bodo asgoalie and Dynaped as field player. Dynaped scored very reliably and avoidedobstacles carefully, such that it never lost balance in the final, which was playedvs. team KMUTT (Thailand). NimbRo won the TeenSize competition for thethird time in a row. In the AdultSize class, team CHARLIE of Virginia Tech

RoboCup Leagues in 2011 XIII

(USA), competed with their new robot Charlie 2. It reliably approached the ball,dribbled it, and kicked it toward the goal. CHARLE won the Dribble &Kick finalvs. Robo Erectus (Singapore). Tsinghua Hephaestus (China) reached the thirdplace. From the winners of the three size classes, the largest robot CHARLIEwas elected Best Humanoid and received the Louis Vuitton award (see Fig. 2).

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 2. Best humanoids: (a) Charlie (1st); (b) NimbRo (2nd); (c) DARwIn (3rd).

Rescue Robot League

The objective of the RoboCupRescue Robot League is to promote the develop-ment of intelligent, highly mobile, dexterous robots that can improve the safetyand effectiveness of emergency responders performing hazardous operationaltasks. We demonstrate and compare advances in robot mobility, perception, lo-calization and mapping, mobile manipulation, practical operator interfaces, andassistive autonomous behaviors. We use annual competitions and subsequentfield exercises with emergency responders to accomplish the following:

– Increase awareness about the challenges involved in deploying robots foremergency response applications

– Provide objective performance evaluations based on DHS-NIST-ASTM In-ternational Standard Test Methods for Response Robots

– Introduce Best-In-Class implementations to emergency responders withintheir own training facilities

– Support ASTM International Standards Committee on Homeland SecurityApplications (E54.08.01)

Participating robot teams search for simulated victims emitting several signsof life within a maze of terrains, obstacles, and manipulation tasks based onemerging standard test methods for response robots. As robots demonstratesuccesses against the obstacles posed in the arenas, the level of difficulty con-tinually increases so the arenas always serve as a stepping-stone from the labo-ratory to the real world. Additional awards are given for Best-in-Class Auton-omy, Best-in-Class Mobility, and Best-in-Class Manipulation. (More details at:http://wiki.robocup.org/wiki/Robot_League).

XIV RoboCup Leagues in 2011

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 3. (a) The RoboCupRescue Robot League arena. (b) An overview design of thearena. (c) A laser-scanned map of the as-built arena.

(a) (d)Fig. 4. (a) Simulated victims are hidden in fabricated voids for robots to find andmap. (b) Crossing ramp terrain with precise dexterous manipulation tasks. (c) Moreadvanced mobility obstacles. (d) The stepfield terrain provides the most comprehensivetest of advanced mobility.

Rescue Simulation League

The Rescue Simulation League consists of three distinct competitions. Thesecompetitions are the agent competition, the virtual robots competition, andthe infrastructure competition. Twenty-two teams from eight different countriesparticipated in the 2011 competitions of this league. The main goal of the infras-tructure competition is to foster the development of new simulator components,while the agent and virtual robot competition are focused on developing intel-ligent agents that make the right decisions in simulated disasters as describedbelow.

The Agent Competition consists of a simulation platform that resembles acity after an earthquake. In this environment intelligent agents can be spawned,which influence the cause of events in the simulation. The agents have the roleof police forces, fire brigades, and ambulance teams.

Recently, the simulation league has initiated a new type of challenge havingthe goal to significantly simplify the entry of newcomer teams. The idea is toextract from the entire problem addressed by the agents certain aspects suchas task allocation, team formation, and route planning, and to present thesesub-problems in an isolated manner as stand-alone problem scenarios with anabstract interface. As a consequence, participating teams can focus on theirresearch on an aspect of the game, without having to solve all low-level issues.

The Virtual Robot Competition has as its goal the study of how a team ofrobots can work together to get a situation assessment of a devastated area asfast as possible. This will allow first responders to be well informed when theyenter the danger zone.

RoboCup Leagues in 2011 XV

In the previous years, different aspects of this task were studied as separateproblems. This meant that a team could get points in a teleoperation test, amapping test, and a deployment test. For the 2011 competition, all aspects werecombined in one comprehensive mission; robots have to explore the environment,find victims, and stay with the victims (working as communication relay).

Fig. 5. Victim detection as presented by one of the Virtual Robot teams.

At the end of the Istanbul competition a workshop was held. Several teamsreported that progress had been made on automatic victim detection, whichallows the operator to concentrate on the coordination of the team. In the idealcase, the robot detects a victim on visual clues, which are confirmed by thehuman operator.

@Home League

The RoboCup@Home league aims to develop service and assistive robot tech-nology with high relevance for future personal domestic applications. A set ofbenchmark tests is used to evaluate the robot’s abilities and performance in arealistic nonstandardized home environment setting. The focus is on the follow-ing domains but is not limited to: Human–Robot–Interaction and Cooperation,Navigation and Mapping in Dynamic Environments, Computer Vision and Ob-ject Recognition Under Natural Light Conditions, Object Manipulation, Adap-tive Behaviors, Behavior Integration, Ambient Intelligence, Standardization andSystem Integration. Using statistical benchmarking we came to the conclusionthat the progress in @Home is very rapid. Tasks that were impossible to solve5 years ago are now performed routinely by many robotic systems. About 40teams are active in the world and the scientific problems in the @Home leagueresulted in at least 140 papers in 5 years, as far as we can track.

An interesting aspect of the @Home competition is that in the last few yearsthe domain areas have begun to expand. Because themselves the robots haveto behave in uncertain real-world situations, we also went into the real world.Since 2010 we have been shopping with the robots in real stores, showing highreliability, adaptiveness, and safety. This is exactly what we are looking for:robots that can cooperate with people in the real world. Also, the test where therobot has to follow a human using limited unsupervised training of maximally60s was done outside the apartment, with great success.

Another important new feature in @Home is that, after 2 years of interna-tional discussions, we introduced the first cognitive benchmark, where the actual

XVI RoboCup Leagues in 2011

task to be performed is not known beforehand by the robot. As far as we knowthis is a first both in and outside RoboCup. During the test we put the robots indifficult situations, give them very complex spoken commands and also under-specified commands. For example, we might say to the robot: “Go to the kitchenand find John,” while John is not there, or “I’m hungry” and the robot mustfigure out what to do.

For the past few years we have only allowed what we call“natural interaction”.This has resulted in robots that we can talk to and we can also use gesturesto control them. It is important that the interaction is natural, since we wanteveryday people to be able to use them. In the future we want to be able tostate: RoboCup@Home has been an important factor in the creation of socialrobots that are commercially viable.

Organization

Symposium Co-chairs

Rofer, Thomas German Research Center for ArtificialIntelligence (DFKI), Germany

Mayer, Norbert Michael National Chung Cheng University, TaiwanSavage, Jesus UNAM, MexicoSaranlı, Uluc Bilkent University, Turkey

International Program Committee

Acosta, Carlos Singapore Polytechnic, SingaporeAkar, Mehmet Bogazici University, TurkeyAkin, H. Levent Bogazici University, TurkeyAlmeida, Luis University of Porto, PortugalAmigoni, Francesco Politecnico di Milano, ItalyAnderson, John University of Manitoba, CanadaBaltes, Jacky University of Manitoba, CanadaBehnke, Sven University of Bonn, GermanyBirk, Andreas Jacobs University, GermanyBonarini, Andrea Politecnico di Milano, ItalyBredenfeld, Ansgar Fraunhofer IAIS, GermanyBrena, Ramon Tecnologico de Monterrey, MexicoBurkhard, Hans-Dieter Humboldt University Berlin, GermanyCaglioti, Vincenzo Politecnico of Milano, ItalyCarpin, Stefano University of California, Merced, USACassinis, Riccardo University of Brescia, ItalyChalup, Stephan The University of Newcastle, AustraliaChen, Weidong Shanghai Jiao Tong University, ChinaChernova, Sonia Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USAChown, Eric Bowdoin College, USACosta, Paulo University of Porto, PortugalDias, M. Bernardine Carnegie Mellon University, USAEguchi, Amy Bloomfield College, USAFarinelli, Alessandro University of Southampton, UKFrese, Udo Universitat Bremen, GermanyFrontoni, Emanuele Universita Politecnica delle Marche, ItalyGhaderi, Ahmad IranGini, Giuseppina Politecnico di Milano, ItalyHengst, Bernhard University of New South Wales, AustraliaHermans, Tucker Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

XVIII Organization

Hester, Todd University of Texas, Austin, USAHofmann, Alexander FH Technikum Wien, AustriaHong, Dennis Virginia Tech, USAHugel, Vincent Versailles University, FranceIndiveri, Giovanni Universita del Salento, ItalyIocchi, Luca Sapienza University of Rome, ItalyJahshan, David University of Melbourne, AustraliaJamzad, Mansour Sharif University of Technology, IranKalyanakrishnan, Shivaram University of Texas, Austin, USAKenn, Holger European Microsoft Innovation Center,

GermanyKimura, Tetsuya Nagaoka University of Technology, JapanKleiner, Alexander Freiburg University, GermanyKraetzschmar, Gerhard Bonn Rhein Sieg University, GermanyLagoudakis, Michail Technical University of Crete, GreeceLaue, Tim German Research Center for Artificial

Intelligence (DFKI), GermanyLevy, Simon Washington and Lee University, USALima, Pedro U. Instituto Superior Tecnico, TU Lisbon,

PortugalLopes, Gil Minho University, PortugalMatsumoto, Akihiro Toyo University, JapanMatteucci, Matteo Politecnico di Milano, ItalyMenegatti, Emanuele The University of Padua, ItalyMericli, Cetin Bogazici University, TurkeyMericli, Tekin Bogazici University, TurkeyMiddleton, Rick The National University of Ireland Maynooth,

IrelandMingguo, Zhao Tsinghua University, ChinaMonekosso, Dorothy University of Ulster, UKNakashima, Tomoharu Osaka Prefecture University, JapanNardi, Daniele Sapienza University of Rome, ItalyNaruse, Tadashi Aichi Prefectural University, JapanNazemi, Eslam Shahid Beheshti University, IranNoda, Itsuki National Institute of Advanced Industrial

Science and Technology, JapanObst, Oliver CSIRO ICT Centre, AustraliaOhashi, Takeshi Kyushu Institute of Technology, JapanPagello, Enrico University of Padua, ItalyPirri, Fiora Sapienza University of Rome, ItalyPloger, Paul G. Bonn Rhein Sieg University of Applied

Sciences, GermanyPolani, Daniel University of Hertfordshire, UKQuinlan, Michael University of Texas, Austin, USA

Organization XIX

Reis, Luis Paulo University of Porto, PortugalRibeiro, A. Fernando Minho University, PortugalRojas, Raul Free University of Berlin, GermanyRuiz-del-Solar, Javier Universidad de Chile, ChileRybski, Paul Carnegie Mellon University, USASammut, Claude University of New South Wales, AustraliaSantos, Vitor University of Aveiro, PortugalSchiffer, Stefan RWTH Aachen University, GermanyShiry, Saeed Amirkabir University of Technology, IranSridharan, Mohan Texas Tech University, USASteinbauer, Gerald Graz University of Technology, AustriaTakahashi, Tomoichi Meijo University, JapanTakahashi, Yasutake Fukui University, JapanTawfik, Ahmed University of Windsor, CanadaTu, Kuo-Yang National Kaohsiung First University of Science

and Technology, Taiwanvan der Zant, Tijn University of Groningen, The NetherlandsVelastin, Sergio University of Kingston, UKVisser, Ubbo University of Miami, USAvon Stryk, Oskar Technische Universitat Darmstadt, GermanyWeitzenfeld, Alfredo USF Polytechnic, USAWilliams, Mary-Anne University of Technology, Sydney, AustraliaWotawa, Franz Technische Universitat Graz, AustriaXie, Guangming Peking University, ChinaZickler, Stefan Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Additional Reviewers

Abeyruwan, Saminda University of Miami, USAAboul-Ela, Magdy The French University, EgyptAbreu, Pedro University of Porto, PortugalAlmeida, Fernando University of Aveiro, PortugalBasaran, Ersin Bogazici University, TurkeyBirbach, Oliver German Research Center for Artificial

Intelligence (DFKI), GermanyBrowning, Brett Carnegie Mellon University, USACalisi, Daniele Sapienza University of Rome, ItalyDallalibera, Fabio The University of Padua, ItalyDanis, F. Serhan Bogazici University, TurkeyFriedmann, Martin Technische Universitat Darmstadt, GermanyGianni, Mario Sapienza University of Rome, ItalyHaider, Sajjad University of Technology, Sydney, AustraliaHung, Emmet National Chung Cheng University, TaiwanKohlbrecher, Stefan Technische Universitat Darmstadt, GermanyLau, Nuno University of Aveiro, Portugal

XX Organization

Marchetti, Luca INRIA Sophia Antipolis, FranceMunaro, Matteo The University of Padua, ItalyNicklin, Steven The University of Newcastle, AustraliaOzkucur, Nezih Ergin Bogazici University, TurkeyPapadakis, Panagiotis Sapienza University of Rome, ItalyPierris, Georgios University of Wales, Newport, UKPretto, Alberto The University of Padua, ItalyPrevitali, Fabio Sapienza University of Rome, ItalyRandelli, Gabriele Sapienza University of Rome, ItalySun, Dali University of Freiburg, GermanyVan Dijk, Sander University of Hertfordshire, UK

Table of Contents

Champion Papers

WrightEagle and UT Austin Villa: RoboCup 2011 Simulation LeagueChampions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Aijun Bai, Xiaoping Chen, Patrick MacAlpine, Daniel Urieli,Samuel Barrett, and Peter Stone

Robot Hardware, Software, and Technologies behind the SKUBARobot Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Kanjanapan Sukvichai, Teeratath Ariyachartphadungkit, andKrit Chaiso

B-Human 2011 – Eliminating Game Delays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Tim Laue, Thomas Rofer, Katharina Gillmann, Felix Wenk,Colin Graf, and Tobias Kastner

RoboCup 2011 Humanoid League Winners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Daniel D. Lee, Seung-Joon Yi, Stephen McGill, Yida Zhang,Sven Behnke, Marcell Missura, Hannes Schulz, Dennis Hong,Jeakweon Han, and Michael Hopkins

Towards Robust Mobility, Flexible Object Manipulation, and IntuitiveMultimodal Interaction for Domestic Service Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Jorg Stuckler, David Droeschel, Kathrin Grave, Dirk Holz,Jochen Klaß, Michael Schreiber, Ricarda Steffens, and Sven Behnke

RoboCupJunior – A Decade Later . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Amy Eguchi, Nicky Hughes, Matthias Stocker, Jiayao Shen, andNaomi Chikuma

Best Paper

Compliant Task-Space Control with Back-Drivable Servo Actuators . . . . 78Jorg Stuckler and Sven Behnke

Papers with Oral Presentation

Planning Stable Paths for Urban Search and Rescue Robots . . . . . . . . . . . 90Mohammad Norouzi, Freek De Bruijn, and Jaime Valls Miro

A Center of Mass Observing 3D-LIPM Gait for the RoboCup StandardPlatform League Humanoid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Colin Graf and Thomas Rofer

XXII Table of Contents

Ball Interception Behaviour in Robotic Soccer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114Joao Cunha, Nuno Lau, and Joao Rodrigues

Rigid and Soft Body Simulation Featuring Realistic Walk Behaviour . . . . 126Oliver Urbann, Soren Kerner, and Stefan Tasse

Towards Robust Object Categorization for Mobile Robots withCombination of Classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Christian A. Mueller, Nico Hochgeschwender, and Paul G. Ploeger

Learning Visual Obstacle Detection Using Color Histogram Features . . . . 149Saskia Metzler, Matthias Nieuwenhuisen, and Sven Behnke

Gradient Vector Griding: An Approach to Shape-Based ObjectDetection in RoboCup Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Hamid Moballegh, Naja von Schmude, and Raul Rojas

AnySURF: Flexible Local Features Computation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174Eran Sadeh-Or and Gal A. Kaminka

Online Motion Planning for Multi-robot Interaction Using ComposableReachable Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Aris Valtazanos and Subramanian Ramamoorthy

Real-Time Trajectory Generation by Offline Footstep Planning for aHumanoid Soccer Robot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Andreas Schmitz, Marcell Missura, and Sven Behnke

Real Time Biped Walking Gait Pattern Generator for a Real Robot . . . . 210Feng Xue, Xiaoping Chen, Jinsu Liu, and Daniele Nardi

Papers with Poster Presentation

Efficient Multi-hypotheses Unscented Kalman Filtering for RobustLocalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Gregor Jochmann, Soren Kerner, Stefan Tasse, and Oliver Urbann

A Portable Ground-Truth System Based on a Laser Sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . 234Roman Marchant, Pablo Guerrero, and Javier Ruiz-del-Solar

Proposal for Everywhere Evacuation Simulation System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246Masaru Okaya and Tomoichi Takahashi

Line Point Registration: A Technique for Enhancing Robot Localizationin a Soccer Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Thomas Whelan, Sonja Studli, John McDonald, andRichard H. Middleton

Learning to Discriminate Text from Synthetic Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270Jose Antonio and Alvarez Ruiz

Table of Contents XXIII

RoboViz: Programmable Visualization for Simulated Soccer . . . . . . . . . . . 282Justin Stoecker and Ubbo Visser

A Generic Framework for Multi-robot Formation Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294Tiago P. Nascimento, Andre Gustavo S. Conceicao, Hugo P. Alves,Fernando A. Fontes, and Antonio Paulo Moreira

Real-Time Plane Segmentation Using RGB-D Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306Dirk Holz, Stefan Holzer, Radu Bogdan Rusu, and Sven Behnke

Catadioptric System Optimisation for Omnidirectional RoboCup MSLRobots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Gil Lopes, Fernando Ribeiro, and Nino Pereira

Smooth Path Planning around Elliptical Obstacles Using PotentialFlow for Non-holonomic Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Trenthan Owen, Rebecca Hillier, and Darwin Lau

NaOISIS: A 3-D Behavioural Simulator for the NAO HumanoidRobot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Aris Valtazanos and Subramanian Ramamoorthy

Facial Expression Recognition for Domestic Service Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . 353Geovanny Giorgana and Paul G. Ploeger

Effective Semi-autonomous Telepresence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365Brian Coltin, Joydeep Biswas, Dean Pomerleau, and Manuela Veloso

Perceiving Forces, Bumps, and Touches from ProprioceptiveExpectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

Christopher Stanton, Edward Ratanasena, Sajjad Haider, andMary-Anne Williams

The Ontology Lifecycle in RoboCup: Population from Text andExecution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Stephan Gspandl, Andreas Hechenblaickner, Michael Reip,Gerald Steinbauer, Mate Wolfram, and Christoph Zehentner

An Overview on Opponent Modeling in RoboCup SoccerSimulation 2D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Shokoofeh Pourmehr and Chitra Dadkhah

Multi Body Kalman Filtering with Articulation Constraints forHumanoid Robot Pose and Motion Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Daniel Hauschildt, Soren Kerner, Stefan Tasse, and Oliver Urbann

Benchmarks for Robotic Soccer Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427Ricardo Dodds, Luca Iocchi, Pablo Guerrero, andJavier Ruiz-del-Solar

XXIV Table of Contents

Development of an Object Recognition and Location System Using theKinectTM Sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

Jose Figueroa, Luis Contreras, Abel Pacheco, and Jesus Savage

grSim – RoboCup Small Size Robot Soccer Simulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450Valiallah Monajjemi, Ali Koochakzadeh, and Saeed Shiry Ghidary

Automated Generation of CPG-Based Locomotion for Robot Nao . . . . . . 461Ernesto Torres and Leonardo Garrido

Application of the “Alliance Algorithm” to Energy Constrained GaitOptimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

Valerio Lattarulo and Sander G. van Dijk

Robust Algorithm for Safety Region Computation and Its Applicationto Defense Strategy for RoboCup SSL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

Taro Inagaki, Akeru Ishikawa, Kazuhito Murakami, andTadashi Naruse

Local Multiresolution Path Planning in Soccer Games Based onProjected Intentions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Matthias Nieuwenhuisen, Ricarda Steffens, and Sven Behnke

Robot Orientation with Histograms on MSL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507Fernando Ribeiro, Gil Lopes, Bruno Pereira, Joao Silva,Paulo Ribeiro, Joao Costa, Sergio Silva, Joao Rodrigues, andPaulo Trigueiros

A Low Cost Ground Truth Detection System for RoboCup Using theKinect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

Piyush Khandelwal and Peter Stone

Adaptivity on the Robot Brain Architecture Level Using ReinforcementLearning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528

Tijn van der Zant

Spatial Correlation of Multi-sensor Features for Autonomous VictimIdentification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Timothy Wiley, Matthew McGill, Adam Milstein,Rudino Salleh, and Claude Sammut

Fast Object Detection by Regression in Robot Soccer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550Susana Brandao, Manuela Veloso, and Joao Paulo Costeira

Real-Time Human-Robot Interactive Coaching System with Full-BodyControl Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562

Anton Bogdanovych, Christopher Stanton, Xun Wang, andMary-Anne Williams

Table of Contents XXV

A Loose Synchronisation Protocol for Managing RF Ranging in MobileAd-Hoc Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574

Luis Oliveira, Luis Almeida, and Frederico Santos

Real-Time 3D Ball Trajectory Estimation for RoboCup Middle SizeLeague Using a Single Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586

Hugo Silva, Andre Dias, Jose Almeida, Alfredo Martins, andEduardo Silva

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599