An Elementary Communication Framework for Open Co-operative RoboCup Soccer Teams

Abstract

One of the present day challenges in RoboCup is the development of Open Co-operative teams, where different research labs join efforts to build a common team. In RoboCup Middle-size League, some teams were confronted with a pairwise cooperation scenario in order to qualify to the competition. Such teams bring together robots with heterogeneous hardware, architectures and control software, which hinders straightforward co-operation. The robots in these teams might co-operate through a-priori strategic knowledge and structured communication during the game. This paper presents the kernel of a communication framework, defining a robotic soccer vocabulary, as well as rules to manage communication.