#RoboCup2024 – each day digest: 21 July

A break in play throughout a Small Dimension League match.

Right now, 21 July, noticed the competitions draw to an in depth in an exciting finale. Within the third and closing of our round-up articles, we offer a flavour of the motion from this final day. In the event you missed them, yow will discover our first two digests right here: 19 July | 20 July.

My first port of name this morning was the Normal Platform League, the place Dr Timothy Wiley and Tom Ellis from Staff RedbackBots, RMIT College, Melbourne, Australia, demonstrated an thrilling development that’s distinctive to their staff. They’ve developed an augmented actuality (AR) system with the goal of enhancing the understanding and explainability of the on-field motion.

The RedbackBots travelling staff for 2024 (L-to-R: Murray Owens, Sam Griffiths, Tom Ellis, Dr Timothy Wiley, Mark Area, Jasper Avice Demay). Picture credit score: Dr Timothy Wiley.

Timothy, the educational chief of the staff defined: “What our college students proposed on the finish of final yr’s competitors, to make a contribution to the league, was to develop an augmented actuality (AR) visualization of what the league calls the staff communication monitor. This can be a piece of software program that will get displayed on the TV screens to the viewers and the referee, and it reveals you the place the robots suppose they’re, details about the sport, and the place the ball is. We got down to make an AR system of this as a result of we expect it’s so significantly better to view it overlaid on the sphere. What the AR lets us do is challenge all of this data dwell on the sphere because the robots are shifting.”

The staff has been demonstrating the system to the league on the occasion, with very optimistic suggestions. Actually, one of many groups discovered an error of their software program throughout a sport while making an attempt out the AR system. Tom stated that they’ve obtained a variety of concepts and strategies from the opposite groups for additional developments. This is among the first (if not, the primary) AR system to be trialled throughout the competitors, and first time it has been used within the Normal Platform League. I used to be fortunate sufficient to get a demo from Tom and it undoubtedly added a brand new degree to the viewing expertise. Will probably be very attention-grabbing to see how the system evolves.

Mark Area establishing the MetaQuest3 to make use of the augmented actuality system. Picture credit score: Dr Timothy Wiley.

From the principle soccer space I headed to the RoboCupJunior zone, the place Rui Baptista, an Govt Committee member, gave me a tour of the arenas and launched me to among the groups which have been utilizing machine studying fashions to help their robots. RoboCupJunior is a contest for college kids, and is cut up into three leagues: Soccer, Rescue and OnStage.

I first caught up with 4 groups from the Rescue league. Robots establish “victims” inside re-created catastrophe situations, various in complexity from line-following on a flat floor to negotiating paths by means of obstacles on uneven terrain. There are three totally different strands to the league: 1) Rescue Line, the place robots observe a black line which leads them to a sufferer, 2) Rescue Maze, the place robots want to research a maze and establish victims, 3) Rescue Simulation, which is a simulated model of the maze competitors.

Staff Skollska Knijgia, collaborating within the Rescue Line, used a YOLO v8 neural community to detect victims within the evacuation zone. They educated the community themselves with about 5000 photographs. Additionally competing within the Rescue Line occasion had been Staff Overengeniering2. In addition they used YOLO v8 neural networks, on this case for 2 components of their system. They used the primary mannequin to detect victims within the evacuation zone and to detect the partitions. Their second mannequin is utilized throughout line following, and permits the robotic to detect when the black line (used for almost all of the duty) adjustments to a silver line, which signifies the doorway of the evacuation zone.

Left: Staff Skollska Knijgia. Proper: Staff Overengeniering2.

Staff Tanorobo! had been collaborating within the maze competitors. In addition they used a machine studying mannequin for sufferer detection, coaching on 3000 images for every kind of sufferer (these are denoted by totally different letters within the maze). In addition they took images of partitions and obstacles, to keep away from mis-classification. Staff New Aje had been collaborating within the simulation contest. They used a graphical consumer interface to coach their machine studying mannequin, and to debug their navigation algorithms. They’ve three totally different algorithms for navigation, with various computational value, which they will change between relying on the place (and complexity) within the maze through which they’re situated.

Left: Staff Tanorobo! Proper: Staff New Aje.

I met two of the groups who had not too long ago offered within the OnStage occasion. Staff Medic’s efficiency was primarily based on a medical state of affairs, with the staff together with two machine studying components. The primary being voice recognition, for communication with the “affected person” robots, and the second being picture recognition to categorise x-rays. Staff Jam Session’s robotic reads in American signal language symbols and makes use of them to play a piano. They used the MediaPipe detection algorithm to seek out totally different factors on the hand, and random forest classifiers to find out which image was being displayed.

Left: Staff Medic Bot Proper: Staff Jam Session.

Subsequent cease was the humanoid league the place the ultimate match was in progress. The sector was packed to the rafters with crowds desperate to see the motion.
Standing room solely to see the Grownup Dimension Humanoids.

The finals continued with the Center Dimension League, with the house staff Tech United Eindhoven beating BigHeroX by a convincing 6-1 scoreline. You possibly can watch the livestream of the ultimate day’s motion right here.

The grand finale featured the winners of the Center Dimension League (Tech United Eindhoven) in opposition to 5 RoboCup trustees. The people ran out 5-2 winners, their superior passing and motion an excessive amount of for Tech United.