Ansgar Bredenfeld

Team Cooperation Using Dual Dynamics

The design of autonomous mobile robots includes the design of team behaviors. We have extended the Dual Dynamics scheme for behavior design in order to let the designer specify team behavior. This approach comes with a tool suite for team behavior specification, simulation, and monitoring, and is used for the coordination of soccer playing robots.

RoboCup-2003 new scientific and technical advances

This article reports on the RoboCup-2003 event. RoboCup is no longer just the Soccer World Cup for autonomous robots but has evolved to become a coordinated initiative encompassing four different robotics events: (1) Soccer, (2) Rescue, (3)Junior (focused on education), and (4) a Scientific Symposium. RoboCup-2003 took place from 2 to 11 July 2003 in Padua (Italy); it was colocated with other scientific events in the field of AI and robotics. In this article, in addition to reporting on the results of the games, we highlight the robotics and AI technologies exploited by the teams in the different leagues and describe the most meaningful scientific contributions.

Integration and evolution of model-based tool prototypes

Model-based software prototyping enables the effective construction of design tools for new system design approaches in a very short time. In this paper, we show that explicit interface modelling is well-suited to integrate such prototyped tools into design environments. In addition, we point out how our model-based generative approach supports the evolution of prototypes very well. We present the prototyping methodology of Dual Dynamics Designer - a novel development tool for behaviour-oriented robot software. We demonstrate how a first prototype evolved into a fully-fledged design tool working as an integrated part in our robot design environment.

Overview of RoboCup 2003 Competition and Conferences

RoboCup 2003, the seventh RoboCup Competition and Conference, took place between July the 2nd and July the 11th 2003 in Padua (Italy). The teams had three full days to setup their robots. The competitions were held in the new pavilion no7 of the Fair of Padua (Fig. 1). Several scientific events in the field of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence were held in parallel to the competitions. The RoboCup Symposium was held in the last two days. The opening talks took place in the historical Main Hall of the University of Padua and the three parallel Symposium sections in the conference rooms of the Fair of Padua.

Model based multi-level prototyping

In this paper, we present our approach to rapid prototyping of robot software. We propose model based multi-level prototyping using UML in combination with a refinement design flow to synchronize development of an early virtual prototype, detailed simulation models and the final real prototype. This is achieved by a core model which is the common reference for model based multi-level prototyping. We demonstrate our methodology at hand of the design of a motor control software for the RoboCup robot platform of GMD. We show that parameters obtained with the virtual prototype and tested in the simulation model are well suited estimations for the final real prototype and therefore allow to reduce time-consuming experiments with the real prototype to a minimum.

Robotic Football for Science

The autonomous robots taking part in the RoboCup matches not only delight enthusiastic domestic spectators but also benefit researchers worldwide

Fußball für die Wissenschaft

Autonome Roboter faszinieren nicht nur die Zuschauer, auch Grundlagenforscher profitieren von den Wettkampfen um den „RoboCup”

Modellbasierter integrieter Entwurfsprozeß für autonome, mobile Roboterteams

Teams von autonomen, mobilen Roboter werden in absehbarer Zukunft eine zunehmende Bedeutung erlangen, beispielsweise in automatisierten Fabrikhallen, im Bereich der Edutainment Robotik oder langerfristig als kommunizierende Assistenzsysteme in Kraftfahrzeugen. In diesem Zusammenhang stellt die Spezifikation, die Programmierung, sowie der Test und die Analyse von autonomen, mobilen Roboterteams eine besondere Herausforderung dar. Hierfur ist ein Software- Entwurfsprozess gefordert, der die notwendigen Entwurfsschritte in effizienter Weise unterstutzt. Die Schwierigkeit liegt zum einen in der Spezifikation der Kontrollprogramme, die auf ganz unterschiedlichen Kontrollarchitekturen basieren konnen, zum anderen im virtuellen Experimentieren in einer synthetischen Umgebung mit Hilfe eines Simulators. Werden daruberhinaus Experimente mit realen Roboterteams durchgefuhrt, was unabdingbar zur Bewertung des Realzeitverhaltens der Sensorik und der vernetzten Kontrollprogramme notwendig wird, ist der Entwurfsprozess nicht mit der Simulation abgeschlossen, sondern mus die Durchfuhrung und Analyse von realen Experimenten unter Echtzeitbedingungen umfassen.