Mixed Reality Competition: FC Portugal Team Description Paper

. This paper introduces both the Eco–Be robotic platform and the RoboCup Mixed Reality Competition and the research under development on the FC Portugal team in the context of this league. The Eco-Bes and the Mixed reality competition present an immediate, simple application for developing complete teams for cooperative robotic applications. The Eco-Be is a very small mobile vehicle, also known as Citizen Micro robot, remotely controlled by infrared commands. This platform provides interesting possibilities like changing the robot’s firmware and using complex external agents to control it. This robotic platform is used by all teams participating in the new soccer RoboCup league, which integrates in a single setup the real (robots) and the virtual (ball). In a practical way, soccer simulation merges with real robots creating a new appealing league. This paper describes the individual algorithms developed, as well as the functional setup built to validate these algorithms. The robots were evaluated through controlled experiments and competition experiments, proving their sufficient reliability. Despite the very short development time, the results achieved in RoboCup 2007 were promising; our team won the soccer competition and achieved a final second place at the global rank in the Physical Visualization League.