RoboCup 2019 Qualification

Important Dates

  • Team Qualification Material Submission Deadline: January 29, 2019
  • TDP Peer Review Deadline: February 19, 2019
  • Preliminary Team Qualification Results Announcement: March 5, 2019
  • Final TDP Submission Deadline: March 19, 2019
  • Final Team Qualification Results Announcement: March 30, 2019
  • Early Registration: March 1 – April 30, 2019
  • Regular Registration: May 1 – May 31, 2019
  • Late Registration: June 1 – June 30, 2019
  • Technical Challenges Sign Up Deadline: June 17, 2019
  • Open Source Submission Deadline: July 2, 2019
  • Team Setup: July 2 – July 3, 2019
  • Competitions: July 4 – July 7, 2019
  • Symposium: July 8, 2019

* All deadlines are by the end of the day at any place on Earth

Qualification Criteria

Every team interested to participate must complete the following actions by January 29th, 2019:

  • Submit a Team Description Paper (see instructions below).
  • Submit a Team Video.
  • Submit by e-mail to the organizing committee your intent to participate in RoboCup. The e-mail subject should be: 2019 Participation Intent <Your Team Name>. Please also include:
    • Team Name
    • Country
    • University
    • Main contact name and email
    • Website (if you have one)
    • Preferred Division (A or B) (More Information)
    • Short rationale for the preferred division

Please pay attention to the following points:

  • Communication will be made via e-mail, using the Small Size mailing list. Pay attention to these e-mails and answer the OC’s questions. A team that does not reply risks losing its qualified place.
  • We understand that new teams may struggle meeting all of the qualification criteria below. We encourage new teams to submit qualification video material demonstrating their true current capabilities, while stating in their Team Description Paper (TDP) what is expected to be completed by competition, teams not meeting minimum required criteria will be considered for inclusion only after all teams submitting compliant qualification materials.
  • The SSL will be divided into two divisions with separate tournaments: Division A and division B. Division A is aimed at advanced teams whereas new and/or less competitive teams can play in division B. Each team will only play in one of those two divisions. The OC will have the final word. We are aiming at around 12 teams per division.
  • Since 2018, it is explicitly allowed to attend as a joint team. Such team will attend as one team and must submit all qualification materials once. It is allowed to use multiple systems, such as multiple computers.

Team Description Paper

As part of the qualification procedure, every team must submit a Team Description Paper (TDP) or an Extended Team Description Paper (ETDP). All teams intending to participate in Division A must submit an ETDP. Every TDP and ETDP will be reviewed by a panel of peers. Teams that present substandard TDPs and ETDPs will not qualify for the RoboCup tournament.

TDP and ETDP Guidelines

All TDPs and ETDPs should follow these guidelines:

  • The TDP should contain a brief description of the team, with citations to previous TDPs and the team’s website where appropriate.
  • The TDP should focus on innovations that the team has produced with respect to their previous TDPs. These innovations should be described in detail, to facilitate reproducibility for other teams, where possible.
  • The TDP should have a clear structure and it should be written in clear English.
  • The TDP should be formatted according to the Springer LNCS format, as the symposium submissions.

In addition to the above requirements, ETDPs should follow these guidelines:

  • The ETDP should describe in detail the aspects of the team’s system which most contribute to its success.
  • The ETDP should be at least 6 pages long.
  • To maximize the effectiveness of ETDPs, every division A team must bring along a poster that illustrates the content of the paper. The poster must have a size of roughly one square meter (A0) and will be hung up in the RoboCup venue.

Submission Information

We have set up a conference management system to handle this years peer review process. It can be accessed at http://conferences.cs.umass.edu/robocup-ssl-2019

Every team can register and upload their qualification materials to the site.

- Registration: Main page, select " I'm a new user and want to create an account"
- Submission: After logging in, click on "Start new paper" (https://conferences.cs.umass.edu/robocup-ssl-2019/paper/new)

Peer Review

Each team needs to review three other teams, thus resulting in three reviews per (E)TDP.

The Organizing Committee will assign reviewers to the papers.

The teams can upload their reviews to the site using their same login. Once the reviews are approved by the Organizing Committee, they can be released to the teams.

Teams that do not review the papers assigned will not qualify.

Team Video

Your team video must contain at least 1 minute of unedited continuous footage. The qualification video can be either of the following types, although preference will be given to item 1 (then 2 and last 3):

  1. A video of your robots participating in a RoboCup standard game (i.e. a game at RoboCup or one of the local regional competitions). The video should show obstacle avoidance, shooting and passing skill. The game should be based on contemporary rules (2011 and afterwards).
  2. A video of your robots (there must be at least two moving robots) engaging in two or more of the following activities:
    • One or more robots competing against an active robot goalkeeper.
    • Two or more robot field players actively going to the ball and playing against one another.
    • At least two robots playing cooperatively against 5 static or moving obstacles.
  3. A video showing one or more robots partially demonstrating capabilities listed in item 2.

The team video is used by the OC to determine the readiness of a team to compete effectively and is part of the criteria in ranking teams in the qualification process. Teams are advised to submit a video that best demonstrates the readiness of the team to compete in an international competition.

Submission Information

To submit the video footage, you must send an e-mail to the RoboCup Small Size League mailing list and CC it also to the organizing committee. The e-mail should contain the following information:

  • Subject: 2019 Qualification Video <Your Team Name>.
  • The URL of your video, which must be available via FTP or HTTP.

Please pay attention to the following:

  • Please submit a single video file.
  • The video must be stored on your own server or a reliable online video hosting service.
  • Do NOT send the video as an attachment to the mailing list nor to the organization committee!