_introduction.tex

The Little Green BATS is the first and so far only Dutch team in the 3D simulation league. We are a

\chapter{Introduction}

\section*{Robocup 3D Simulation}

RoboCup is the largest AI/robotics related event in the world. It was started in 1996 with a highly ambitious goal: to propel the fields of Artificial Intelligence and robotics such that in 2050 a team of robotic players could defeat the human soccer world champions. RoboCup consists of several 'leagues' where different types of robots focus on different aspects of mechanics and/or cognition needed to achieve this goal.

One of these leagues is the Simulation League. Like the name suggests, there are no real robots in this league. An artificial soccer game, including the field, the ball and the players, are simulated on one or several computers and the results are visualized on a screen/beamer. The main focus of this league is to research higher cognitive abilities, like planning and team play, but also offers a low cost entry to the world of RoboCup for teams with a small budget.

At first, the simulation was restricted to 2 dimensions. However, in 2003 a begin was made with a new simulator that included the third dimension height and the RoboCup Simulation League's 3D challenge was born. The first few years the agents in the simulation were 3D versions of their 2D counterparts: spheres instead of circles, but in 2007 a giant leap forward was made by introducing complex humanoid agents.

\section*{Little Green BATS}

The Little Green BATS is the first and so far only Dutch team in the 3D simulation league. We are a group of graduate students from the department of AI at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Our team name is derived from the fact that the first 3D agents in the league were balls and from the very philosophical observation that Balls Are Truly Spheres (BATS). This abbreviation reminded us of our favorite song 'Little Green Bag' by The George Baker Selection and so the whole team name was born.

We entered the competition for the first time at the 10th edition of RoboCup at Bremen, Germany. unfortunately our hard work didn't pay off that time: already in the second round we got eliminated. However, after this we had a good base to build upon and the good time we had at the event and the nice community inspired us to continue and work hard for another year. This turned out to be defiantly worth it, because in 2007 in Atlanta we managed to become vice world champions!

\section*{This How-to}

This document describes the workings of the 3D simulation and of the architecture created and released by the Little Green BATS. It has the intention and hope to get new or existing teams started in the league.

The rest of this document is structured as follows. Chapter \ref{chInstallation} describes the installation process of the 3D simulation server and of the BATS agent architecture. In chapter \ref{chServer} the operation of the simulation server is explained. The theoretical base of the BATS agent architecture is handled in chapter \ref{chArchitecture}. Finally, a step by step tutorial on the different parts of the BATS agent architecture is given in chapter \ref{chTutorial}.