We could do an imagination exercise to see how it will look a soccer game in the future. Big name players like Messi or Ronaldo will remain on the bench or as coaches while humanoid robots will entertain us with their techniques borrowed from real players. The biggest advantage to using robots in football games is the possibility to integrate in a single player all features which were noted by real football players like Messi or Ronaldo. Just like in a game coach team may choose on what position the robot will play.
University of Bonn design and build one the most performance humanoid robot soccer player as an open platform. NimboRo has a modular structure and is compatible with a player for RoboCup Humanoid League TeenSize class.
Since the first version when was used in 2007 NimboRo was improved and now is ready to be used as a professional player. The design is simple with a skeleton type structure build from carbon composite and aluminum. It has 95cm height and weight 6.6Kg which is far away for a real soccer player but is closer to other robotics soccer players.
For a high flexibility in movements the robot has 20 actuators which are spitted for legs, arm, and neck. Every leg is moved by 6 MX-106 actuators with a running degree between 0 and 360 degrees and a maximum torque of 10.0N.m. Each arm is moved by 3 MX-64 actuators with a running degree between 0 and 360 degrees and a maximum torque of 7.3N.m. The neck has only 2 MX-64 actuators.
The brain of robot is an AMD E-450 processor with 2×1.65GHz working frequency and can run also on Linux or Windows. Beside processor there are 2GB RAM memory and for store is available a 64GB SSD card. For connections are used a USB 3.0, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet ports and for wireless connections is available WiFi IEEE 802.11b/g/n.
The eye of soccer player is a wide-angle camera Logitech C905. All components are supplied to a lithium polymer 3.6Ah battery.
A vertical position of the robot is ensured by a 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis gyro sensors.
The software Linux based used to control the robot was developed using the open-source software released for DARwIn-OP. The software include now new features like tilt estimation, instability detection, and also old features like ball perception, walking, or kicking.
NimboRo OP has a price of 20.000 Euro plus tax and is available for sale directly from the University of Bonn.
Resources:Robotnews.de , Deutsche Entwicklung des humanoiden Roboter NimbRo-OP;
Nimbro, NimbRo-OP;
