RoboCup 2023 Qualification

Important Dates

  • Team Qualification Material Submission Deadline: January 31, 2023
  • TDP Peer Review Deadline: February 21, 2023
  • Preliminary Team Qualification Results Announcement: March 7, 2023
  • Final TDP Submission Deadline: March 21, 2023
  • Final Team Qualification Results Announcement: April 4, 2023
  • Early Registration: Mar 24 – May 9, 2023
  • Regular Registration: May 10 – June 6, 2023
  • Late Registration: June 7- June 30, 2023
  • Technical Challenges Sign Up Deadline: June 28, 2023
  • Open Source Submission Deadline: July 4, 2023
  • Team Setup: July 4 – 5, 2023
  • Competitions: July 6 – 9, 2023
  • Symposium: July 10, 2023

* 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 until the Team Qualification Material Submission Deadline, which is specified at the beginning of the page:

  • 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: 2023 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 RoboCup Small Size League 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 must follow these guidelines:

  • The TDP must contain a brief description of the team, with citations to previous TDPs and the team’s website where appropriate.
  • The TDP must focus on innovations that the team has produced with respect to their previous TDPs. These innovations must be described in detail, to facilitate reproducibility for other teams, where possible.
  • The TDP must have a clear structure and it must be written in clear English.
  • The TDP must be formatted according to the Springer LNCS format, as the symposium submissions. Contrary to the requirements in the linked document the (E)TDP should also include page numbers.
  • The TDP must be at least 6 and at most 16 pages long.

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

  • The ETDP must describe in detail the aspects of the team’s system which most contribute to its success.
  • 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

Like last year we have set up a conference management system to handle the peer review process. It is accessible via this link: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/RCSSL2023

Each team will have to register, or log in with an already existing account, and upload their qualification materials to the site. To create an account, click on ‘Register’, next to the ‘New to CMT?’ text. To submit a paper, click on the top-left button ‘Create a new submission’.

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.

TDP Examples

The Organizing Committee has selected a few (E)TDPs as good examples.

TIGERs Mannheim Extended Team Description for RoboCup 2020 – This paper gives a very detailed explanation of the hardware improvements made to the team. It gives a clear explanation and also the reasoning for these changes, providing valuable information for other teams. The paper is also not excessively long, making it easier for reviewers to read it. It also has no overlaps with the team’s previous paper.

ER-Force 2020 Extended Team Description Paper – This paper goes in depth regarding the team’s new path planning system. The paper does not mention hardware as there were no significant changes in that area, and mentioning them would only mean having overlap with the previous paper. The size of the paper is also not excessively long.

ZJUNlict Extended Team Description Paper for Robocup 2020 – This paper discusses the changes done in every area of the robot, the mechanical changes, the electronic changes and the software ones. It is a bit longer than what has been requested this year but it covers each topic well and does not have overlap with the previous paper.

Team Video

Your team video must contain at least 1 minute of unedited continuous footage of game time. As game time is stopped during STOP or HALT, this could be significantly more than one minute of wall time of unedited footage. The qualification video has to be recent, i.e. not more than 2 years old. Due to the COVID pandemic we allow to use a video from 2019, especially from participating in RoboCup Sydney, too. If the OC feels like your video is too old, the OC might ask teams to prove that their video demonstrates their current capabilities. If your video is longer than 5 minutes, for example a full recording of a match, teams have to provide timestamps of the respective sections (see listing below). 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. For participating in Division A, teams also have to show their ball placement.
  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: 2023 Qualification Video <Your Team Name>.
  • The URL of your video. Your Video must be either playable in a modern browser upon opening that webpage, or downloadable via HTTPS.

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!