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 RoboCup 2004 Portugal
With the aim of developing a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team by 2050, RoboCup was set up a few years ago. It is held annually and has established itself as one of the most important robotics events in the world.
This year, the RoboCup was held in Lisboa, Portugal in June. It has drawn an unprecedented number of teams to compete in the Humanoid League of the event. Our humanoid robot, ROPE II, is one of them. It is Team RO-PE's debut and a maiden step to a very adventurous journey ahead!
(Top) ROPE II with its constructor, Mr Ho Hoan Nghia (middle), Mr Sim Wai Yong (left) and Dr. Chew Chee Meng (right) |
ROPE II in Portugal
ROPE II was among the 13 participating robots in the Humonoids League. The competition results were based on the robots' comprehensive performance in four games, namely Walking, Challenge (including Obstacle Walking, Walking on Ramp and Ball Passing), Freestyle and Penalty kick.
Click here for a detailed result report from the official website of RoboCup 2004. ROPE II was ranked 5th in the overall ranking and 2nd in the H80 Category. |
ROPE II is a humanoid robot which we have built from scratch in the Legged Locomotion Group led by Dr. Chew Chee Meng, A/P Hong Geok Soon and Prof Poo Aun Neow. The group belongs to the Control & Mechatronics Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, NUS. ROPE stands for RObot PEle or RObot for Personal Entertainment. ROPE II is the second prototype.
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Although we initially designed and built it for research purpose rather than for competition, ROPE II performed reasonably well in the competition.
It was ranked 4th in both Walking and Free-style, and made it into the semi-final in the Penalty kick event, knocking out a number of veteran participating robots. In fact, within the H80 category, it was ranked 2nd in Walking and 1st in Free Style. |
(Top)Team ROPE II posing with other partipants of the competition. |
ROPE II's abilities
The brain of ROPE II is PC-104, which is a small size version of PC compatible. All the movements including normal walking and ball kicking are computed based on various types of sensory information. All the computation is done on board.
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This makes ROPE II a real autonomous robot. Rather than playing back the motion recorded beforehand, ROPE II can modify its movements according to the real environment.
For example, in the penalty kick event as shown on the right, ROPE II searches for the ball on the ground, walk to the ball, and shoot it towards the target.
<< (Left) A sequence of ROPEII tracking the ball, positioning itself before giving the kick. |
Team ROPE 2004
We would like to hereby accredit the efforts and diligence of the members of Team ROPE II. ROPE II couldn't have made it to Portugal without the hard work of these 3 gentlemen.
Mr. Ho Hoan Nghia, M.Eng student
Dr. Chew Chee Meng, Project supervisor
Mr. Sim Wai Yong, Ph.D student
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