The description of team “KIKS”
Keitaro YAMAUCHI1, Takamichi YOSHIMOTO2, Satoshi HORII3, Takeshi CHIKU4,Masato WATANABE5, Kazuaki ITOH6 and Touko SUGIURA7

Toyota National College of Technology
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
2-1 Eisei-cho, Toyota, Aichi, 471-8525 Japan1

public-class-qoo@ezweb.ne.jp
2t_yoshimoto@hotmai.com
3
mlb_moon_light@inter7.jp
4
shiketakuchi8836@hotmail.com
5
masa@toyota-ct.ac.jp
6kazu-it@toyota-ct.ac.jp
7
sugi@toyota-ct.ac.jp

1. Introduction
Our purpose of the participation to the RoboCup international competition is toenhance our motivation for development of the creativeness. We think that thiscompetition is the most advanced PBL (project-based learning) experiment. We areaiming the effective education of the creativeness through the robot contest using“MINDSTORMS” of LEGO brocks etc. in our college. The creativity is measured
and evaluated quantitatively at many points of view. As the result of education for thecreativeness, we found that it was very important to keep neutral position of theirknowledge. That is to say, this meaning is important to eliminate no possibilities. Wesummarize the specific feature of our robot as follows.
(1) We manufactured the strongest machine which is specialized for the keeper
robot using so called “mecanum-wheels” described later.
(2) Except for the keeper machine, the robots have six drive-wheels.
(3) We made all machines and electrical circuit ourselves.
(4) The performance of a camera and a wireless communication system were also
raised sufficiently.

2. Education of creativity
We have educated the creativity using the robot contest for more than six years.
The feature of our college is introduced as following.
(1) The process for elaborating an idea is a kind of brainstorming. So, the students
debate the presentation of each idea by meaning of the tournament method. As
the results, the idea is evaluated by many students and improved to the refinedidea.
(2) Each function of various robots can use as the image database to enhance theefficiency of idea.
(3) Our college is well known in Japan as manufacturing an original and a uniquerobot. KIKS was resulted the 3rd prize of RoboCup Japan Open held in 2004.
Moreover, we got the certification for international competition of 2004 and 2005.
(4) The robot using six drive-wheels was only one in the competition, and ourmachine was introduced as unique robot in ROBOCON MAGAZINE in Japan.

3. Manufacturing of super Robot with “mecanum-wheel”
Up to now, we have manufactured the robot which does not take into account theposition on the field. That is, the robots have the same mechanism and same function
for all position. But, in actual soccer game, e.g. the keeper does not necessarily movesimilar to the other players. The action of a keeper is specializing for the trapping,punching, kicking with quick motion mainly to the transverse direction. Thus, wetried to manufacture the high-performance keeper robot which can shoot loop-kick. InRoboCup international competition, our problem is the lack of shooting ability. Then,
we reduce the number of defender robots and increase the number of offense robots.
We believe that the ability to get score is getting better than that of last year. In 2006,
we produce the keeper robot with so called “mecanum-wheels” and four robots withsix drive-wheels. The mecanum-wheel is shown in Fig. 1. The six slack-like pipes areattached at the angle of 45 degree.

Fig. 1 The mecanum-wheel

Fig. 2 The outline of keeper machine

The mecanum-wheel is attached to the machine as shown in Fig. 2. For the moveof right-and-left direction, it is performed by rotating in the same direction of fourwheels. The forward direction is performed when a wheel on either side rotates inside,and backward direction is performed when a wheel on either side rotates outside. Themachine is able to move for all direction as mentioned above. A motor using for all
mecanum-wheel is produced in maxon co. The motor is controlled by PID feedback
control system which used encoder. Furthermore, a loop-kick is able to do perfectly.
As the results, when a keeper clears a ball, a possibility that a ball will hit an enemy's
defender becomes low, that is, a possibility of an own goal is getting lower.

4. Wireless communication system
The wireless communication system was changed into “Futaba FRH-SD07T”. The
old communication system was weak to interference, and its radio attainment distancewas very short. Even if the robot operated sufficiently in our laboratory, it might beimpossible at the end of the competition field. Moreover, since the transmission speedof the communication was slow at old system, we had to prepare three transmitter and3 bands of frequency. This cause complicated problem such as a setup of ports andsoftware program. At present, the transmission speed of new communication system
is improved by 3 times. It is used one transmitter. The various problems were solved
mentioned above.

5. Image-processing system
Up to last year, the image-processing system was used one camera system.
We changed into two cameras system by “BASLER A310fc” as shown in Fig.3. Since
it was interlace scanning system at old system, it was very difficult to catch a ballmoving with high speed. However, now we can recognize it perfectly, because ofchange into the progressive camera system. Moreover, the frame rate of a camera isalso changed into 73fps from 30fps. As the results, we are able to catch the object
precisely more than twice compared with that of old system. Furthermore, the camera
system with NTSC format and capture board is not convenient against carrying ofsystem. The desktop PC was also needed. Then, we constructed the new system using
the notebook PC with the IEEE1394 terminal. As the results, the external captureboard is unnecessary and the carrying of system became easy.

Fig. 3 BASLER A310fc

6. Artificial Intelligence program
Artificial Intelligence (AI) program was renewed for all. Up to last year, theprogram which played strategy role include for the most of part. Therefore, there wasno extendibility. Thus, we separated the strategy program from other functional part,and reconstructed the system which can easily change the strategy part.
Many data received from referee box and/or global vision server are sent to “datamanager”. The command analyzed by “data manager” is sending to and receivingfrom player, strategist and controller. Finally, the results is sent to the machine. The
procedure is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4 Relationship and configuration of each module

7. Conclusion
We have done the most of improvement for all part. As the results, we got the highperformance for the robots and AI program, compared with that of last year. It isexpected that our machine achieve the first “goal”. We want to demonstrate theperformance and the motion of our robots in the competition. We summarize thespecific feature of our robot as follows.
(1) We manufactured the strongest machine which is specialized for the keeper
robot using “mecanum-wheels”.
(2) Except for the keeper machine, the robots have six drive-wheels.
(3) We made all machines and electrical circuit ourselves.
(4) The performance of a camera and a wireless communication system were alsoenhanced sufficiently.
Furthermore, to participate to the RoboCup International competition, it is very
important for us to keep the motivation for the development of the creativity. The
quantitative measurements and evaluation of the efficiency about education of thecreativity is difficult. Especially, sufficient analysis of that effect is not able to do fora short period. That is to say, we need such situation which is highly kept themotivation for a long period. The college and/or institute in Japan where can educate
continuously the creativity for the students of 16-20 years old are scarce. But, we cando that for a long period. In order to investigate the students’ ability for developmentof creativity, we think that it is important to continue participating to the international
competition.