CS-Sharif ROCS 99 team in middle-sized robots league

Arvand is a robot specially designed and constructed for playing soccer according to RoboCup rules and regulations for the medium size robots. This robot consists of three main parts: mechanics (motion and kicker), hardware (image acquisition, processing and control unit) and software (image processing, motion control and decision making). The motion mechanism is based on a drive unit, a steer unit and a castor wheel. Robot machine vision system uses a CCD camera and a frame grabber. Two microcontroller based boards are specially designed for carrying out the software system decisions and transferring them to the robot mechanics. The software system can perform real time image processing and object recognition. It implements algorithms for playing soccer. These algorithms are written in a high level language ”ArvandLan” specially designed for mobilizing these robots. By changing the algorithms our robots can play as goal keeper, attacker or defender. We have constructed 5 such robots and successfully tested them in a soccer field defined according to RoboCup regulations. 1 Mechanics Architecture In the following we describe the steps of design and construction of our special purpose robot for soccer playing. According to the motion complexity of a soccer player robot, proper design of its mechanics can play a unique role in simplifying the playing algorithms. For attaining this goal, there is a need to a mechanism that can easily and with the most accuracy provide the robot with its motion demands. In this regard, after performing several experiments on the motion mechanisms of mobile robots a specific mechanism was designed and implemented that together with the sensors and control feedbacks, to a good extent, verified our expectancy. The first experiment in producing Arvand was making a model car chassis that did not provide us with expected motion capabilities such as dribbling, penalty kick, intercepting and preserving the ball. For this reason, the mechanism described below, was designed and implemented.