Edna Barros

João G. Melo, Edna Barros

In the RoboCup Small Size League (SSL), teams are encouraged to propose solutions for executing basic soccer tasks inside the SSL field using only embedded sensing information. Thus, this work proposes an embedded monocular vision approach for detecting objects and estimating relative positions inside the soccer field. Prior knowledge from the environment is exploited by assuming objects lay on the ground, and the onboard camera has its position fixed on the robot. We implemented the proposed method on an NVIDIA Jetson Nano and employed SSD MobileNet v2 for 2D Object Detection with TensorRT optimization, detecting balls, robots, and goals with distances up to 3.5 meters. Ball localization evaluation shows that the proposed solution overcomes the currently used SSL vision system for positions closer than 1 meter to the onboard camera with a Root Mean Square Error of 14.37 millimeters. In addition, the proposed method achieves real-time performance with an average processing speed of 30 frames per second.

Roberto Fernandes, Walber M. Rodrigues, Edna Barros

When producing a model to object detection in a specific context, the first obstacle is to have a dataset labeling the desired classes. In RoboCup, some leagues already have more than one dataset to train and evaluate a model. However, in the Small Size League (SSL), there is not such dataset available yet. This paper presents an open-source dataset to be used as a benchmark for real-time object detection in SSL. This work also presented a pipeline to train, deploy, and evaluate Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) models in a low-power embedded system. This pipeline was used to evaluate the proposed dataset with state-of-art optimized models. In this dataset, the MobileNet SSD v1 achieves 44.88% AP (68.81% AP50) at 94 Frames Per Second (FPS) while running on an SSL robot.

Mateus G. Machado, João G. Melo, Cleber Zanchettin et al.

This work investigates the potential of Reinforcement Learning (RL) to tackle robot motion planning challenges in the dynamic RoboCup Small Size League (SSL). Using a heuristic control approach, we evaluate RL's effectiveness in obstacle-free and single-obstacle path-planning environments. Ablation studies reveal significant performance improvements. Our method achieved a 60% time gain in obstacle-free environments compared to baseline algorithms. Additionally, our findings demonstrated dynamic obstacle avoidance capabilities, adeptly navigating around moving blocks. These findings highlight the potential of RL to enhance robot motion planning in the challenging and unpredictable SSL environment.

Lucas Cavalcanti, Riei Joaquim, Edna Barros

In a diverse set of robotics applications, including RoboCup categories, mobile robots require control commands to interact with surrounding environment correctly. These control commands should come wirelessly to not interfere in robots' movement; also, the communication has a set of requirements, including low latency and consistent delivery. This paper presents a complete communication architecture consisting of computer communication with a base station, which transmits the data to robots and returns robots telemetry to the computer. With the proposed communication, it is possible to send messages in less than 4.5ms for six robots with telemetry enables in all of them.

Carlos H. C. Pena, Mateus G. Machado, Mariana S. Barros et al.

The IEEE Very Small Size Soccer (VSSS) is a robot soccer competition in which two teams of three small robots play against each other. Traditionally, a deterministic coach agent will choose the most suitable strategy and formation for each adversary's strategy. Therefore, the role of a coach is of great importance to the game. In this sense, this paper proposes an end-to-end approach for the coaching task based on Reinforcement Learning (RL). The proposed system processes the information during the simulated matches to learn an optimal policy that chooses the current formation, depending on the opponent and game conditions. We trained two RL policies against three different teams (balanced, offensive, and heavily offensive) in a simulated environment. Our results were assessed against one of the top teams of the VSSS league, showing promising results after achieving a win/loss ratio of approximately 2.0.