Fast and Precise Black and White Ball Detection for RoboCup Soccer

In 2016, UT Austin Villa claimed the Standard Platform League’s second place position at the RoboCup International Robot Soccer Competition in Leipzig, Germany as well as first place at both the RoboCup US Open in Brunswick, USA and the World RoboCup Conference in Beijing, China. This paper describes some of the key contributions that led to the team’s victories with a primary focus on our techniques for identifying and tracking black and white soccer balls. UT Austin Villa’s ball detection system was overhauled in order to transition from the league’s bright orange ball, used every year of the competition prior to 2016, to the truncated icosahedral pattern commonly associated with soccer balls.

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