A Robust and Calibration-Free Vision System for Humanoid Soccer Robots

Abstract

This paper presents a vision system which is designed to be used by the research community in the Standard Platform League ( http://www.tzi.de/spl ) (SPL) and potentially in the Humanoid League ( http://www.robocuphumanoid.org ) (HL) of the RoboCup. It is real-time capable, robust towards lighting changes and designed to minimize calibration. We describe the structure of the processor along with major ideas behind object recognition. Moreover, we prove the benefit of the proposed system by assessing recorded image data on the robot hardware. The vision system has already been successfully employed with the NAO robot by Aldebaran Robotics ( http://www.aldebaran-robotics.com ) in prior RoboCup competitions as well as several minor events.