International SPL 2013 Competitors – RoboCup Standard Platform League

Austin Villa	USA Team Contact: Samuel Barrett, Katie Genter Institutes: Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin
Team Profile:	Our team is from the University of Texas at Austin. We participated in the Aibo league starting in 2003 and started with the Naos in 2007. We won the 2009, 2010, and 2012 SPL US Opens. We made the quarterfinals at RoboCup 2009, won 3rd place at RoboCup 2010, and won the championship at RoboCup 2012.
Research Topics:	Self localization, multi-agent task allocation, path planning and obstacle avoidance, reinforcement learning, POMDPs
Team Report:	report.pdf

Austrian-Kangaroos	Austria Team Contact: Dietmar Schreiner, Alexander Hofmann, Markus Bader Institutes: Vienna University of Technology – Institute of Computer Languages, Compilers and Languages Group University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien Vienna University of Technology – Automation and Control Institute
Team Profile:	The Austrian Kangaroos are a young team, consisting of undergraduates, graduates and researchers from the Vienna University of Technology and the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien. The Kangaroos participated in RoboCup for the first time in Graz, 2009, where they reached the quarterfinals. Since then several student’s run trough a robotic based education and performed very well. This year the team is very motivated and wants to reach the quarterfinals again.
Research Topics:	computer vision, computational intelligence, social and management aspects in mid to large scale project teams.
Team Report:	report.pdf

Bembelbots	Germany Team Contact: Dipl. Inf. Markus Meissner Institutes: Joint Robotics Lab, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
Team Profile:	Team consists of graduate and undergraduate students of Goethe University. The Bembelbots participated in RoboCup German Open since 2010 and have successfully qualified for RoboCup 2012.
Research Topics:	Self localization, Image classification, Object recognition
Team Report:	N/A

Berlin United – Nao Team Humboldt	Germany Team Contact: Heinrich Mellmann Institutes: Department for Cognitive Robotics, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin
Team Profile:	The Nao Team Humboldt (NaoTH) is part of the recently founded joint research group “Berlin United” between the RoboCup research groups of the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin and the Freie Universitat Berlin (FUmanoids, KidSize League). The team was founded at the end of 2007 as the successor of the Aibo Team Humboldt (ATH) and consists of students and researchers from the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin. The ATH was participating in RoboCup from 1999 to 2008. As part of the German Team they won three times the World Championship in the Four-Legged League and twice the technical challenge. Currently, the NaoTH participates in both, SPL and S3L with the common core program. In 2010 we got the vice world champion in S3D. In both leagues we also achieved good results in a number of local competitions and technical challenges, e.g., in 2010 we won the German Open and AutCup in S3D and the IranOpen 2011 in SPL.
Research Topics:	World Modeling (selflocalization, local object modeling, semantic modeling), Dynamic Motion Control (walk, ball handling), Narrowing the gap between simulation and real world (we are striving to bring the SPL and S3D closer together), Attention Control
Team Report:	N/A

B-Human	Germany Team Contact: Thomas Roefer, Tim Laue, Judith Mueller Institutes: DFKI Bremen, Cyber-Physical Systems University of Bremen, Department of Computer Science
Team Profile:	B-Human consists of students from the University of Bremen in their advanced study period and researchers from the DFKI Bremen. In the past, members of the B-Human team participated in different RoboCup leagues. Since 2009, B-Human won every RoboCup German Open as well as the RoboCup World Championship three times in a row. We also won the RoboCup Technical Challenge in 2009 and B-Human team members earned the Best Paper Award at RoboCup Symposium 2010. In 2013, we intend to participate in the RoboCup World Championship and the RoboCup German Open.
Research Topics:	Probabilistic state estimation, real-time computer vision, robot simulation, humanoid walking
Team Report:	Code Release and Team Report 2012

Cerberus	Turkey Team Contact: H.Levent Akin Institutes: Department of Computer Engineering, Bogazici University
Team Profile:	Team consists of graduate and undergraduate students of BU AILAB. Cerberus participated in RoboCup since 2001 except the year 2004. Cerberus was ranked 1st in the Technical Challenges in 2005 and made it to the quarterfinals in 2006 and 2008. 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
Team Report:	N/A

DAInamite	Germany Team Contact: Axel Hessler Institutes: DAI-Labor, TU Berlin
Team Profile:	The DAInamite team consists of graduate and undergraduate students of the DAI-Labor at Technische Universitaet Berlin, Germany lead by Prof. Dr. Sahin Albayrak. The team started in the 2D soccer simulation league in 2004 and switched to the SPL in 2012. The RoboCup German Open 2012 was the first experience for the team.
Research Topics:	Multi-agent systems, agent-oriented software engineering, communication, coordination, cooperation, autonomy, computational intelligence, emergence in distributed systems, management of distributed systems, applicational machine learning, planning, computer vision, real-time systems, cyber-physical systems
Team Report:	N/A

Dutch Nao Team	The Netherlands Team Contact: Duncan ten Velthuis, Patrick de Kok Institutes: Universiteit van Amsterdam, Faculty of Science, Informatics Institute Technische Universiteit Delft, Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering Technische Universiteit Delft, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science
Team Profile:	The Dutch Nao Team consists of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bachelor and Master Students, supported by a senior staff-member. The Dutch Nao Team debuted in the Standard Platform League (SPL) competition at the German Open 2010. The same year the first research paper about the Nao was published. In 2011 the Dutch Nao Team made its breakthrough by qualifying for the World RoboCup in Istanbul.
Research Topics:	Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Motion, Communication, World Modeling, Probabilistic Robotics
Team Report:	N/A

Edinferno	United Kingdom Team Contact: Subramanian Ramamoorthy Institutes: Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour, School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh
Team Profile:	The team consists of graduate and undergraduate students at the School of Informatics. Edinferno is the first UK-based team to participate in RoboCup SPL, having made its debut at RoboCup 2011 in Istanbul. Edinferno achieved a quarter-final finish in its second appearance at RoboCup 2012, and everyone on the team looks forward to building on this experience in RoboCup 2013.
Research Topics:	Autonomous decision making under uncertainty, Learning in single and multi-agent environments, Online motion synthesis, Probabilistic localization and real-time vision
Team Report:	N/A

Nao-Team HTWK	Germany Team Contact: Rico Tilgner Institutes: Faculty of Computer Science, Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Leipzig University of Applied Sciences
Team Profile:	The Nao-Team HTWK is a RoboCup team that consists of graduate and undergraduate students of Leipzig University of Applied Sciences and was founded in 2009. The team participated in RoboCup 2009-2012 as well as the RoboCup German Open 2009-2013.
Research Topics:	Evolutionary Algorithms, Biped Walking, Artificial Intelligence, Multi-Robot Coordination, Computer Vision, Localization
Team Report:	N/A

Kouretes	Greece Team Contact: Michail G. Lagoudakis Institutes: Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Technical University of Crete
Team Profile:	Kouretes is the RoboCup team of the Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece. The team consists mainly of undergraduate students working on their diploma thesis on selected robocup-related topics. Kouretes participates in RoboCup competitions since 2006;the team ranked 2nd in the MSRS contest at RoboCup 2007, 1st in the SPL-MSRS league at RoboCup 2008, 3rd in the SPL-Nao league at RoboCup 2008, among the top 8 teams in the SPL-Webots league at RoboCup 2008, 6th in the SPL-Webots league at RoboCup 2009, and 2nd in the SPL Open Challenge at RoboCup 2011.
Research Topics:	Motion Design, Reliable Perception, Model-Based Behavior Development, Egocentric Mapping and Path Planning
Team Report:	N/A

Mi-Pal	Australia Spain Team Contact: Vlad Estivill-Castro Institutes: School of Informaiton adn Communicaiton technologyCT – Griffith University Departament de Tecnologies de la Informacio i les Comunicacions – Univeritat Pomepu Fabra
Team Profile:	Team consists of graduate and undergraduate students. Mi-Pal participated in RoboCup since 2002 except the years 2007-2010.
Research Topics:	The Artificial Intelligence Group at the Department of Technology, in Universitat Pompeu Fabra, studies computational models of reasoning, action, learning, and perception. The research interests of the academic team at Griffith University are human-robot interaction, vision, multi-agent systems, reasoning, and learning for intelligent mobile agents. Our expertise has continued to be the development of a flexible and generic software architecture and our research publications demonstrate this (see list of publications). More recently our research has produced capabilities to model behaviors of robots at a high level description by combining reactive mechanisms (modeled by finite state machines) and non-monotonic reasoning (represented by logics like Plausible Logic).
Team Report:	N/A

Nao Devils Dortmund	Germany Team Contact: Stefan Tasse, Oliver Urbann Institutes: Robotics Research Institute, TU Dortmund
Team Profile:	The team consists of researchers and students of TU Dortmund University. We participate in RoboCup competitions since 2002 with several different teams: Microsoft Hellhounds and as part of the German Team (4-Legged-League), DoHBots (Humanoid League), and BreDoBrothers (together with University Bremen) and now as Nao Devils Dortmund in the Standard Platform League.
Research Topics:	biped walking, computer vision, stochastic filtering
Team Report:	N/A

Northern Bites	USA Team Contact: Eric Chown Institutes: Department of Computer Science, Bowdoin College
Team Profile:	A completely undergraduate team from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, USA, the Northern Bites have been competing in RoboCup since 2006. The Northern Bites earned first place in 2007 with the Aibo, 3rd in 2008, and returned to the SPL final in 2009 to place second with the Nao. In 2010, the Northern Bites advanced to the quarterfinals.
Research Topics:	Robot vision, cognitive robotics, gait learning, bipedal motion, self localization
Team Report:	N/A

NTU RoboPAL	Taiwan Team Contact: Chieh-Chih (Bob) Wang Institutes: Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University
Team Profile:	The team consists of graduate and undergraduate students of the Robot Perception and Learning Lab. NTU RoboPal participated in RoboCup SPL in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and made it to the quarterfinal in 2009 and won the third place in 2011.
Research Topics:	Multi-robot localization and tracking, motion planning, activity recognition, robot perception, machine learning
Team Report:	N/A

RoboCanes	USA Team Contact: Ubbo Visser Institutes: Department of Computer Science, University of Miami
Team Profile:	The Team consists of graduate students of the AI, Games &Robotics LAB. RoboCanes participated in RoboCup since 2010 in the 3D Soccer Simulation League and reached 2nd place in the 2012 World Cup. RoboCanes won the German Open 2011 and was also runner-up at the Iran Open 2012. It is the team’s 2nd year in the SPL.
Research Topics:	Self localization, motions, obstacle avoidance, parameter optimization, reinforcement learning
Team Report:	N/A

RoboEireann	Ireland Team Contact: T. Whelan, Dr. R. Villing Institutes: Department of Computer Science, NUI Maynooth Department of Electronic Engineering, NUI Maynooth
Team Profile:	Team consists of graduate students from Electronic Engineering and Computer Science departments in NUI Maynooth. 1st place in RoboCup 2008 in a joint effort with Newcastle University (Australia) as the NUManoids. 4th place in the 2011 GermanOpen. 1st place in the 2011 RoboCup Standard Platform League Technical Challenge. 2nd place in the 2012 GermanOpen.
Research Topics:	Robust localization, multi-agent behaviour, closed-loop kinematics.
Team Report:	N/A

rUNSWift	Australia Team Contact: Benhard Hengst, Maurice Pagnucco Institutes: School of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales
Team Profile:	UNSW had 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, despite having an entirely new team of undergraduate students each year. Since 2008 UNSW has competed in the Standard Platform League, where they were quarter finalists in 2008 and placed 2nd in 2010. They were also 1st in the challenges in 2010 and third in 2011.
Research Topics:	Machine learning, multi-robot coordination, human-robot interaction, reinforcement learning, AI planning.
Team Report:	http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~robocup/

SPQR Team	Italy Team Contact: Daniele Nardi, Luca Iocchi Institutes: Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti, Sapienza University of Rome
Team Profile:	SPQR is the group of the Faculty of Computer Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome in Italy, that is involved in RoboCup competitions since 1998 in different leagues: Middle-size 1998-2002, Four-legged 2000-2007, Real-rescue-robots 2003-2006, @Home in 2006, Virtual-rescue since 2006 and Standard platform League (Nao Division) since 2008. SPQR team members have served RoboCup organization in many ways: Daniele Nardi served as Exec, Trustee and currently as President of RoboCup Federation and was RoboCup Symposium co-chair in 2004, Luca Iocchi is Exec member of RoboCup@Home since 2008 and was RoboCup Symposium co-chair in 2008. SPQR team member published a total of 14 papers in RoboCup Symposia (including a best paper award in 2006), in addition to many other publications about RoboCup related activities in other international journals and conferences in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. SPQR team includes a Post-Doc, an experienced PhD student, a research assistant and several undergraduate students (including some non-Italian members).
Research Topics:	Self localization, Multi-Agent task allocation, obstacle avoidance and Reinforcement learning
Team Report:	N/A

TJArk	China Team Contact: CHEN Qijun, Li Xin Institutes: School of Electronics and Information Engineering, 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. And we entered the eighth finals in the Standard Platform of RoboCup 2009.
Research Topics:	Machine Vision, Motion Control of Biped Robot, Machine Learning, Self Localization, Multi-agent Systems, etc
Team Report:	N/A

UChile Robotics Team	Chile Team Contact: José Miguel Yáñez, Leonardo Leottau, Javier Ruiz del Solar Institutes: Department of Electrical Engineering, Universidad de Chile Advanced Mining Technology Center, Universidad de Chile
Team Profile:	The UChile robotics team is an effort of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Universidad de Chile in order to foster research in mobile robotics. The team is involved in RoboCup competitions since 2003 in different leagues: Four-legged 2003-2007, @Home in 2007-2010, Humanoid in 2007-2010, and Standard Platform League from 2008.
Research Topics:	Mobile robotics and computer vision: Self localization, perception, navigation, learning and mobile robot simulation.
Team Report:	N/A