The Robot Sports team started the activities after a break because of COVID-19. Not surprisingly, the World Cup in Bordeaux was postponed to June 2021. The team hold virtual team meetings to keep in contact with the team. We took the time for extensive discussion the last test match and analyze the data collected. A number of concepts applied in the robots have been explained and discussed in order to increase the general knowledge of this.
Recently we are able to go to the Robot Sports Arena again. The integration of the new platform has started, the first player has been assembled, the electronics have been connected and the first meters have been driven. More news will follow soon. The new robot is equipped with a computer running Ubuntu 20.04. The old robots and development laptops were migrated from Ubuntu 16.04 to Ubuntu 20.04.
Besides the new environment and the new motion software, several small improvements have been made for better diagnostics. Support for the new Refbox protocol (JSON) have been made. A few small changes for the soccer behavior were made. Tthe player with the ball will get more space from his own defenders. The players will try to avoid the passes to a teammate and interrupt the shots on goal.