Development of intelligent vision fusion based autonomous soccer robot

This paper proposes the hands-on implementations of the "Formosa middle size soccer robot", which is developed based on the intelligent vision fusion sensing architecture. The proposed autonomous soccer robot consists of the mechanical platform, motion control module, "MapCam360" omni-directional vision module, front vision module, image processing and recognition module, investigated target object positioning and real coordinate reconstruction, robot path planning, subgoal definition, competition strategies, and obstacle avoidance. Especially, in order to increase the robustness of the vision sensing, the catadioptric omni-directional and front vision modules are dynamically switched according to the ball recognition results of the omni-directional camera. The previous mentioned hardware and software modules and components are all integrated, and the control modes are fused based on the relationships among the positions of the enemy robot, ball, goal, and field boundaries. In order to increase the motility and attackability, we design the dribbling and kicking mechanisms. In addition, the PC-based soccer robot controller is developed based on the embedded Linux platform. The motion control uses the Mitsubishi AC-servo motors and controllers to achieve higher reliability. Finally, the physical robot had been finished and tested, and we also validate the functional performance of "Formosa middle size soccer robot" in terms of participating in the "2004 Taiwan's annual middle size soccer robot competition".