Participating Teams 2008 – RoboCup Standard Platform League

BabyTigers DASH	Japan Team Contact: Tsuneo Moritsugu Institutes: Osaka City University Ryukoku University
Team Profile:	Our team was organized by Osaka University and Osaka City University in this competition. We have reconstructed the whole program for ERS-7 based on our past experiences.
Research Topics:	Computer Vision, Monte Carlo Localization method, MultiAgent Systems
Competing in:	Aibo
Team Report:	None

BreDoBrothers	Germany Team Contact: Stefan Czarnetzki, Thomas Röfer Institutes: Dortmund University of Technology University Bremen DFKI Lab Bremen
Team Profile:	The BreDoBrothers are a RoboCup team that is a cooperation between the University of Dortmund, the University of Bremen, and the DFKI Lab Bremen. The team consists of numerous undergraduate students from both universities as well as researchers from the three institutions. The latter have already been active in a number of RoboCup teams such as the GermanTeam, the Microsoft Hellhounds, and the Bremen Byters (all Four-Legged League), B-Human and the Doh!Bots (Humanoid Kid-Size League), and B-Smart (Small-Size League).
Research Topics:	Walking, machine learning, vision, localization
Competing in:	Nao
Team Report:	pdf

Cerberus	Turkey Team Contact: H.Levent Akın Institutes: Department of Computer Engineering, Bogazici University
Team Profile:	Team consists of graduate and undergraduate students of BU AILAB. Cerberus participated in RoboCup 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007. Cerberus was ranked 1st in the Technical Challenges in 2005 and made it to the quarterfinals in 2006. Cerberus took the fourth place in RoboCup German Open 2007.
Research Topics:	Self localization, multi-agent task allocation, path planning and obstacle avoidance, reinforcement learning, POMDPs
Competing in:	Nao, Aibo
Team Report:	pdf

GermanTeam	Germany Team Contact: Max Risler, Thomas Röfer Institutes: Humboldt Universität Berlin Universität Bremen Technische Universität Darmstadt DFKI Lab Bremen
Team Profile:	see http://www.germanteam.org
Research Topics:	see GT2005.pdf, section 1.2
Competing in:	Aibo
Team Report:	2008-tdp-GermanTeam.pdf, further publications

Kouretes [Kouretes+AUEBo]	Greece Team Contact: Michail G. Lagoudakis, Nikos Vlassis, Diomidis Spinellis Institutes: Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Technical University of Crete Department of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business
Team Profile:	Kouretes is the RoboCup team of the Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece. The team is a collaboration of the Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering and the Intelligent Systems and Robotics Laboratory at the Department of Production Engineering and Management and consists mainly of undergraduate students working on their diploma thesis on selected robocup-related topics. The team participated in the technical challenges of the Four-Legged League at RoboCup 2006 and played full games for the first time in the Four-Legged League at RoboCup German Open 2007. Kouretes won the 2nd place in the MSRS Simulation Contest at RoboCup 2007. In the Aibo league, Kouretes partnered with team AUEBo of the Information Systems Technology Laboratory at the Athens University of Economics and Business to form a joint Aibo team (Kouretes+AUEBo).
Research Topics:	Reinforcement Learning, Team Coordination, Robust Object Recognition, Special Action Synthesis, Adaptive Color Segmentation, CPG-Based Walk
Competing in:	Nao (Kouretes), Aibo (Kouretes+AUEBo), MSRS Simulation (Kouretes), RobotStadium Simulation (Kouretes)
Team Report:	pdf

Northern Bites	U.S.A Team Contact: Eric Chown Institutes: Bowdoin College
Team Profile:	Bowdoin College’s Northern Bites began in Spring 2005. Though we are mostly undergrads balancing full class loads, we enjoy RoboCup as an escape from the standard academic methods of problem sets, examinations, and essays. Team member quotes as to why they joined the nBites: “I was interested in the application of advanced mathematics in a computerized environment.” – Mark McGranaghan ;”I hoped to finally succeed in competition after losing at years of sports in school” – Joho Strom;”Nothing shows the inanity of our human existence more then robot dogs running on carpet.” – George Slavov. You can read all about our glories and downfalls at our state of the art blog: http://robocup.bowdoin.edu
Research Topics:	cognitive architecture, machine learning, python, RoboCup for education
Competing in:	Nao, Aibo
Team Report:	pdf

NUManoids	Australia &Ireland Team Contact: Stephan Chalup, Naomi Henderson, Rick Middleton Institutes: Newcastle Robotics Laboratory , The University of Newcastle Australia Hamilton Institute, National University of Ireland Maynooth
Team Profile:	Team consists of graduate and undergraduate students and academics ofthe University of Newcastle and NUI Maynooth. The NUbots from the University of Newcastle competed in the RoboCup Four-Legged League 2002-2007 using Sony AIBO robots. They were placed second in 2007 and 2005, and had achieved a third place in the years 2004, 2003, and 2002. The NUbots won the World Championship at RoboCup 2006 in Bremen, Germany. In 2008, The NUbots cooperate with NUI Maynooth to form a joint team called NUManoids which won the first world title in the Nao Standard Platform League.
Research Topics:	Biped walk, human-robot interaction, line detection, localization, locomotion, machine learning on robots, robotic bear, sound analysis, statistics and vision
Competing in:	Nao
Team Report:	pdf

rUNSWift	Australia Team Contact: Maurice Pagnucco Institutes: School of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales
Team Profile:	Team consists mainly of CSE undergraduate students but the 2008 team included three Masters students. UNSW had amazing success in the 4-Legged League of RoboCup when they participated from 1999 to 2006 – from eight attempts they made the final six times, winning the league three times and coming second another three times. This was even more impressive considering that the entire team of students were new each year, and that they were all undergraduates. In 2008 they moved up to the 2-Legged Nao League in the newly renamed Standard Platform League, where they were quarter finalists.
Research Topics:	Machine learning, multi-robot coordination, human-robot interaction, reinforcement learning, AI planning.
Competing in:	Nao
Team Report:	http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~robocup/2008site/

TecRams	Mexico Team Contact: Jorge Ramirez Uresti Institutes: Department of Information Technologies and Computation, Tec de Monterrey Campus Estado de Mexico
Team Profile:	Team consists of graduate and undergraduate students of Robots Cuadrupedos Lab. Cerberus participated in RoboCup 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008. TecRams was ranked 2nd in the Technical Challenges in 2007 and made it to the quarterfinals in 2008.
Research Topics:	Self localization, multi-agent colaboration, obstacle avoidance, reinforcement learning, Color classification and segmentation in variant light conditions
Competing in:	Aibo
Team Report:	http://www.cem.itesm.mx/robocup/Documentacion/PDF/Technical%20report%20-%20TecRams%202008.pdf

TJArk	China Team Contact: CHEN Qijun Institutes: School of Electronics and Information, Tongji University
Team Profile:	TJArk was established in 2004 as a part of the Lab of Robot and Intelligent Control of Tongji University in China,and participated in RoboCup for the first time in 2006. We entered the quarter finals in RoboCup 2007 and RoboCup 2008.
Research Topics:	Machine Vision, Motion Control of Quadruped Robot, Machine Learning, Self Localization,Multi-agent System .etc.
Competing in:	Aibo
Team Report:	Update Later…

UT Austin Villa	U.S.A. Team Contact: Peter Stone, Michael Quinlan, Todd Hester Institutes: Department of Computer Sciences The University of Texas at Austin
Team Profile:	Our team started as a class project in January of 2003. At RoboCup 2003 in Padua, our goal was just to participate. We lost all of our official games, though were able to win some exhibitions and achieved the fourth highest result in the challenge competition, including the second highest score in the obstacle avoidance challenge. We reached the quarterfinals of RoboCup 2004,2005,2007 and 2008 (in both Nao and Aibo). Also see our team reports (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006) for details.
Research Topics:	Machine learning, Multiagent systems, Learned locomotion and ball capturing, Robust vision, color constancy, Automatic sensor-action model callibration
Competing in:	Nao, Aibo
Team Report:	pdf

WrightEagleUnleashed!	China Australia Team Contact: Xiaoping Chen, , Jinsu Liu, , Mary-Anne Williams, , Xun WangInstitutes: University of Science and Technology, China, University of Technology, Sydney
Team Profile:	Wright Eagle Unleashed! is a new AIBO team created by uniting the University of Science and Technology China (Wright Eagle) and the University of Technology Sydney Australia (UTS Unleashed!) teams. USTC has a strong record of success at RoboCup and has been competing since 1997 having won 4 Championships and 7 Runners Up across the different RoboCup competitions. UTS is known for its innovative style having developed the first dodge behavior in the legged league. The UTS Dodge was widely adopted after UTS introduced it in 2004. UTS Unleashed! were the Australian Champions in 2004 and won the Scientific Challenges, came 2nd in the Soccer at RoboCup 2004.
Research Topics:	Artificial intelligence, Multi-Robot Coordination, Legged Robot Motion Planning, Path Planning, Computer vision, Localization, Cognitive Modeling, Knowledge Representation, Attention, Anticipation and Autonomy
Competing in:	Aibo
Team Report:	pdf

zadeat bafanabots	South Africa Germany Austria Team Contact: Graeme McPhillips Institutes: Robotics and Agents Research Lab, University of Cape Town
Team Profile:	Team consists of post-graduate students in a joint International collaboration between RWTH Aachen University (Germany), Graz University of Technology (Austria) and the University of Cape Town (South Africa)
Research Topics:	Machine Learning – Reinforcement Learning, Distributed Collective Intelligence, Gaming, Vision, Localisation and Mapping, Emergence, Knowledge Representation, Cognitive Robotics
Competing in:	Nao
Team Report:	pdf