Cooperative 3-Robot Passing and Shooting in the RoboCup Small Size League

This paper describes a method for cooperative play among 3 robots in order to score a goal in the RoboCup Small Size League. In RoboCup 2005 Osaka, our team introduced a new attacking play, where one robot kicks a ball and the other receives and immediately shoots the ball on goal. However, due to the relatively slow kicking speed of the robot, top opponent teams could prevent successful passing between robots. This motivates the need for more complex play, such as passing around to several robots to avoid the opponents’ passing defense. In this paper we propose a method to realize such a play, i.e. a combination play among 3 robots. We discuss the technical issues to achieve this combination play, especially for a pass-and-shoot combination play. Experimental results on real robots are provided. They indicate that the success rate of the play depends strongly on the arrangement of the robots, and ranges from 20 % to 90 % in tests with an opponent goalkeeper which stands still.