Mechanics and electronics of the footballer autonomous mobile robot

Abstract

This paper describes an Autonomous Mobile Robot which plays football. This project was developed by three senior students from the Industrial Electronics Engineering course during their probation period. The rules dictated the same structure for every team but then each team would solve, develop and use different electronics, sensory systems, playing algorithms, etc. This robot uses one major sensor which is a vision system with the use of a colour camera. This robot uses also a convex mirror placed on its top looking downwards with the video camera pointing to it. This way, the robot can see both goals, the ball and other robots, all the time. This paper describes the mechanics involved and the electronics. The encoders to detect position and orientation of the robot, the motor and its control, as well as the ball holder mechanics system are described.