The CMUnited-98 champion small-robot team

In this chapter, we present the main research contributions of our champion CMUnited-98 small robot team. The team is a multiagent robotic system with global perception, and distributed cognition and action. We describe the main features of the hardware design of the physical robots, including differential drive, robust mechanical structure, and a kicking device. We briefly review the CMUnited-98 global vision processing algorithm, which is the same as the one used by the previous champion CMUnited-97 team. We introduce our new robot motion algorithm which reactively generates motion control to account for the target point, the desired robot orientation, and obstacle avoidance. Our robots exhibit successful collision-free motion in the highly dynamic robotic soccer environment. At the strategic and decision-making level, we present the role-based behaviors of the CMUnited-98 robotic agents. Team collaboration is remarkably achieved through a new algorithm that allows for team agents to anticipate possible collaboration opportunities. Robots position themselves strategically in open positions that increase passing opportunities. The chapter terminates with a summary of the results of the RoboCup-98 games in which the CMUnited-98 small robot team scored a total of 25 goals and suffered 6 goals in the 5 games that it played.