Discussion on mobility rules from team leader meeting on JUN 13 ,2023

Rules
#1

Dear committees and robocupers!

As we discussed in team leader meeting, I and my teammates have been considering on the change of rules and we wanted to suggest and have a discussion on the below topics.
However, This year we accept that the rule improvements to promote the autonomous feature is important and in the right direction for the further challenge of the competition but we just want to help shaping up the rules to be more realistic and remind you of the real importance.

1.Considering the autonomous robot scoring
We found some point that not clear to classify the autonomous from the semi-autonomous. Since the teams can consider the teleop or autonomous in any reps during the mission, we can’t even know what happen during the teleop e.g., sequentially plotting the waypoint while traversing and use this data for traversing in the autonomous reps.So, we come up with some ideas to clarify this situation.
The autonomous multiplier (x4) is given when the team begin the mission with autonomous traverse.

  • If the teleop is used and later change to autonomous, the score should be given as semi-autonomous [x1 or x2]
  • If the team needs autonomous multiplier(x4) after teleop, the 2 minutes reset with system restarting (both station and robot) is required to prove that the robot is traversing autonomously not following the previous teleop path.
    FYI: since the map of each lane can be collected during the setup day, the autonomous should be able to run without teleop.
  1. Considering the elapsed/remained time for the mobility task
    According to the real-world situation, the rescuer have to access to the victim as quick as possible to increase the survival rate.
    We think the 10 reps limitation is not related to the situation above. We suggest the 2 methods to modify the rules as follows.
    First, The teams can traverse as many reps in 10 minutes both auto and teleop to measure the best robot in mobility. (Because of the x4 multiplier is already push the autonomous score 4 times higher than the teleop.)
    Second, If the 10 reps can’t be changed, the remaining time should be included in the scoring (as multiplier/addition ) to represent the robot efficiency.
    Note: This can realize the meaningful of time that is very important for the rescue robot in real-world situation.

Best regards,
Jirakarn

#2

Hello Jirakarn,

thank you for sharing your concerns. The team’s involvement in developing the rules is very important. If you are interested in shaping the rules for next year, please consider joining the technical committee.

1.Considering the autonomous robot scoring

Currently, we consider everything to be autonomous, that is hands-off after leaving the start zone. Indeed, this solution is lacking in the scenarios you described. We will discuss, if further measures might be necessary to address these situations.

Considering the elapsed/remained time for the mobility task

As explained by Raymond during the team leader meeting, we want to prevent having a “race” in easier lanes. In past years, there has been a tendency to just drive as fast as possible with little regard to safety and integrity of the robot platform. This does not properly reflect the needs of real scenarios where a more careful approach is often required. After all, a single mistake can mean the end of a real mission. Therefore, we decided to implement a fixed limit for performed repetitions that allows us to gather representative data for a team’s performance while shifting the focus to task-difficulty instead of pure speed.

Best regards,
Martin