Principle Solution for Designing Collaborative Humanoid Soccer Robots

Abstract

The task of developing a fully collaborative humanoid robotic soccer team is a challenge. On one hand, the hardware of humanoid robots has evolved to allow fast and stable locomotion as well as precise sensing. On the other hand, the software of humanoid robots has evolved to enable highly complex operations such as object recognition and partial intelligence. Nevertheless, the cooperative play of multiple humanoid robots as a soccer team remains as an open research topic in the rapidly advancing research area of multi-robot systems. This work presents a systematic approach based on the specification of a principle solution for designing collaborative humanoid soccer robots as in the RoboCup Standard Platform League. The principle solution is specified using a newly developed specification technique for the conceptual design of mechatronic and self-optimizing systems. The presented approach enables intuitive specification of team strategies and systematic realization of collaborative behaviors of the humanoid soccer robots starting from the conceptual design phase. It facilitates cross domain development effort that requires multidisciplinary collaboration.