RoboCup比賽系列（零）：總綱

04-23

前言

我記得自己大二剛來基地的時候，狗哥（西工大一小學生）就曾告訴我們這一屆新隊員：

我們參加機器人比賽重要的是經歷和交流，而不是結果。最後獲得的獎只能代表你參加過此次比賽，它無法全部證明你的能力。

當時聽完學長的話，我心裏面也是非常認同的，直到後來我參加過三次機器人比賽之後，我才算是真正地體會到學長這番話的含義：對於需要好成績才能從學校那裡拿到足夠資金的基地來說，結果是重要的。但對於個人來說，我們從比賽中所獲得經驗教訓以及與其他的隊伍進行的技術交流才是最重要的，而不是所謂的加分。

簡介

我們團隊參加的比賽類別為RoboCup@Home，即RoboCup服務機器人項目組。關於具體什麼是RoboCup和RoboCup@Home，接下來我會對它們進行詳細的介紹。

RoboCup

概述

RoboCup is an international scientific initiative with the goal to advance the state of the art of intelligent robots. When established in 1997, the original mission was to field a team of robots capable of winning against the human soccer World Cup champions by 2050.

RoboCup是一項旨在推進智能機器人技術水平的國際科學計劃。在1997年成立的時候，其最初的任務是要在2050年之前組建一支能夠贏得人類足球世界盃冠軍的機器人隊。

目標

It is our intention to use RoboCup as a vehicle to promote robotics and AI research, by offering a publicly appealing, but formidable challenge. One of the effective ways to promote science and engineering research is to set a challenging long term goal. When the accomplishment of such a goal has significant social impact, it is called a grand challenge project. Building a robot that plays soccer will not by itself generate significant social and economic impact, but the accomplishment will certainly be considered a major achievement for the field. We call this kind of project a landmark project. RoboCup is a landmark project as well as a standard problem.

我們打算通過提供一個公開吸引人但艱巨的挑戰，來把RoboCup作為推動機器人和AI研究的工具。促進科學和工程研究的有效途徑之一是制定具有挑戰性的長期目標。當這樣一個目標的實現具有重大的社會影響時，它就被稱為是一個偉大的挑戰項目。建立踢足球的機器人本身不會產生重大的社會和經濟影響，但成果肯定會被認為是該領域的重大成就。我們稱這種項目是一個里程碑式的項目。RoboCup既是一個里程碑式的項目，也是一個標準的問題。

夢想

We proposed that the ultimate goal of the RoboCup Initiative to be stated as follows:

By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup.

We propose that this goal will be one of the grand challenges shared by the robotics and AI communities for the next 50 years. This goal may sound overly ambitious given the state of the art of technology today.

Nevertheless, we believe it is important that such a long-range goal should be set and pursued. It took only 50 years from the Wright Brothers』 first aircraft to the Apollo mission, to send a man to the moon and safely return him to the earth. It also took only 50 years, from the invention of the digital computer to Deep Blue, which beat the human world champion in chess. Building a humanoid soccer player requires an equally long period and extensive efforts of a broad range of researchers, and the goal will not be met in the near future.

我們提出，RoboCup計劃的終極目標如下：

到二十一世紀中葉，一個完全自主的類人機器人足球運動員隊伍在遵守國際足聯的官方規則下與人類世界盃冠軍隊伍進行對抗，並取得最終的勝利。

我們提議這個目標將是未來五十年機器人和AI社區所共同面臨的巨大挑戰之一。鑒於當今的技術水平，這個目標可能聽起來過於雄心勃勃。

不過，我們相信如此長遠的目標得到確定和追求是很重要的。從萊特兄弟的第一架飛機到派人登上月球上並將其安全送回地球的阿波羅任務僅花了五十年。從數字計算機的發明到在國際象棋比賽中擊敗人類世界冠軍的深藍也僅花了五十年的時間。構建類人足球運動員需要相當長的時間以及大量研究人員的廣泛努力，所以短期內這一目標不會實現。

里程碑

In the case of RoboCup, the ultimate goal is to "develop a robot soccer team which beats the human world champion team." (A more modest goal is "to develop a robot soccer team which plays like human players.")

Needless to say, the accomplishment of the ultimate goal will take decades of effort. It is not feasible, with current technologies to accomplish this goal in the near future. However, this goal can easily lead to a series of well-directed subgoals. Such an approach is common in any ambitious, or overly ambitious project. In the case of the American space program, the Mercury project and the Gemini project, which manned an orbital mission, were two precursors to the Apollo mission. The first subgoal to be accomplished in RoboCup is "to build real and software robot soccer teams which play reasonably well with modified rules." Even to accomplish this goal will undoubtedly generate technologies, which will impact a broad range of industries.

對於RoboCup來說，其終極目標是「開發一個擊敗人類世界冠軍隊伍的機器人足球隊」（一個更為謙虛的目標是「開發一個表現與人類運動員類似的機器人足球隊」）。

毫無疑問，完成這個終極目標需要幾十年的努力，短期內使用當前技術實現該目標是不可行的。然而，該目標很容易催生一系列具有針對性的子目標，這種方法在任何有雄心或過於雄心勃勃的項目中都是常見的。在美國太空計劃中，水星項目和配備軌道任務的雙子星座項目是阿波羅任務的兩個前身。在RoboCup中，第一個將要完成的子目標是「建立真實和基於軟體的機器人足球隊，它們能根據修改過的規則在比賽中表現得很合理」。即使實現這一目標，毫無疑問也會產生影響廣泛行業的新技術。

標準問題

One other aspect of RoboCup is a view that RoboCup is a standard problem so that various theories, algorithms, and architectures can be evaluated. Computer chess is a typical example of such a standard problem. Various search algorithms were evaluated and developed using this domain. With the accomplishment by Deep Blue team, which beat Garry Kasparov, a human grand master, using the official rules, the computer chess challenge came close to its aim. One of the major reasons for the success of computer chess as a standard problem is that the evaluation of progress was clearly defined. The progress of the research can be evaluated as the strength of the system, which was indicated by its rating. However, as computer chess approached its goal, we needed a new challenge. The challenge needed to foster a set of technologies for the next generation of industries. We think that RoboCup will fulfill such a demand.

RoboCup的另一面可以被看做是一個標準問題，它可以評估各種理論、演算法和架構。計算機象棋是這樣一個標準問題的典型案例，各種搜索演算法都可以使用該模式進行了評估和開發。隨著深藍團隊使用官方規則打敗人類象棋大師加里·卡斯帕羅夫的成就，計算機象棋挑戰接近了它的目標。計算機象棋作為標準問題成功的主要原因之一是對其進度的評估是確定的。研究進展可以通過評估來表現系統的能力。然而，隨著計算機象棋接近其目標，我們需要一個新的挑戰，它需要為下一代產業培育出一系列新技術，我們認為RoboCup將會滿足這樣的需求。

RoboCup@Home

概述

The RoboCup@Home league aims to develop service and assistive robot technology with high relevance for future personal domestic applications. It is the largest international annual competition for autonomous service robots and is part of the RoboCup initiative. A set of benchmark tests is used to evaluate the robots abilities and performance in a realistic non-standardized home environment setting. Focus lies on the following domains but is not limited to: Human-Robot-Interaction and Cooperation, Navigation and Mapping in dynamic environments, Computer Vision and Object Recognition under natural light conditions, Object Manipulation, Adaptive Behaviors, Behavior Integration, Ambient Intelligence, Standardization and System Integration. It is colocated with the RoboCup symposium.

RoboCup@Home聯盟旨在開發服務和輔助機器人技術，與未來個人家庭應用高度相關。它是自主服務機器人最大的國際年度大賽，是RoboCup計劃的一部分。一套基準測試用於評估機器人在現實非標準化家庭環境中的能力和性能。研究的重點在於以下領域但不限於：人機交互與合作、動態環境中的導航和建圖、自然光條件下的計算機視覺和物體識別、物體操作、自適應行為、行為集成、環境智能、標準化和系統集成。它與RoboCup研討會共同進行。

總綱

以下是我原創的RoboCup比賽系列文章：

RoboCup比賽系列（零）：總綱

RoboCup比賽系列（一）：中國服務機器人大賽

RoboCup比賽系列（二）：RoboCup合肥國際賽前一天

RoboCup比賽系列（三）：RoboCup合肥國際賽第一天

RoboCup比賽系列（四）：RoboCup合肥國際賽第二天

RoboCup比賽系列（五）：RoboCup合肥國際賽第三天

RoboCup比賽系列（六）：RoboCup合肥國際賽第四天

RoboCup比賽系列（七）：RoboCup合肥國際賽第五天

RoboCup比賽系列（八）：RoboCup合肥國際賽第六天

RoboCup比賽系列（九）：RoboCup貴陽公開賽

總結

時至今日，那些過往比賽的經歷依然歷歷在目：我們一起裝箱運送機器人、在賓館裡熬夜調試代碼、在比賽會場緊張地敲擊著命令行。我們既有為失敗而留的淚水，也有因努力付出所獲得的階段性成功，無論最終的比賽結果如何，它們已經成為我大學最美好的回憶，同時也是我人生中最不可缺少的寶貴財富。

接下來，我會以系列文章的形式記錄我大學所經歷過的三次RoboCup比賽，其中重點突出比賽經歷，而非技術開發要點。總之，希望自己從比賽中所獲得的教訓和經驗都能始終銘記在心中，並為之後所用。