The team got a 4th consecutive title of champion in Humanoid Kid-Size League at RoboCup 2019 in Sydney.
The RoboCup is the largest competition of autonomous robotics around the world.
The historical challenge is to design robots who are able to play soccer in a fully autonomous way.
There are several technical and scientific difficulties for that. - Motor skills: moving around the field, getting up if it falls, kicking the ball
- Localization: the robot must be aware of its position by using odometry and vision
- Strategy: we develop a team of 4 robots. The robots enforce a global strategy
The Rhoban team participates to the competition from 2011.
We won the competition in the league humanoid kid-size soccer in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. We also got the best humanoid price in 2017.
The Rhoban team is champion for 4 years now !
Competition is an interesting context maybe not to win but because it needs a high level of robustness of prototypes. Indeed, when a prototype is developed in a lab and shown in a video, then the concept is proven, but it remains an experiment. In the context of a competition, the robot must work at the very beginning of the match, after that, it is too late ! No question to try it again.
Competition needs a high level of robustness
This is true for all the skills of the robot, and at first the locomotion.
The participation of Rhoban to RoboCup is supported from the beginning by IdEx Ambassador program from Bordeaux University.
