(logo by Janette Forte)
This is the official site of
the UT
Austin Villa 3D Simulation team from
the Department of Computer
Science at the University of
Texas at Austin.
This page provides information on a kick anticipation which was an important component in UT
Austin Villa winning the 2014 RoboCup 3D simulation
competition. Results from the competition, including videos of game
action, are linked off the UT Austin Villa homepage. The remainder of
this page focuses only on the kick anticipation.
For the 2014 RoboCup 3D simulation competition UT Austin Villa used
"kick anticipation" when performing kicks. Kick anticipation is where the player kicking the
ball broadcasts to its teammates the location the ball is being kicked
toward so that some of its teammates can anticipate where the ball is
being kicked and run to that location before the ball gets there.
Additionally, in anticiaption of the ball being kicked, teammates of
the player kicking the ball try and avoid standing in the path of the
expected trajectory of the ball in order to not accidentally block the kick.
Below are videos of kick anticipation in action.
Kick Anticipation
The broadcasted target location where the ball is being kicked is
shown in orange and the locations that players are moving to in order
to anticipate the location of the ball after the kick are shown in
light blue. The expected trajectory of the kick is shown in purple
until right before the ball is kicked (when the player kicking the
ball is within half a meter of the ball) at which time the trajectory
is shown in magenta. Once the ball is about to be kicked players avoid
crossing over the expected trajectory of the kick (magenta line) so
that they don't accidentally block the kick.
Download video:
(ogv, mp4)
Passing and Shooting with Kick Anticipation
A demonstration of the effectiveness of using long distance
kicking with kick anticipation for passing and shooting the ball when playing against
RoboCanes from the University of Miami (the second place team at
RoboCup 2014).
Download video:
(ogv, mp4)
For any questions, please
contact Patrick MacAlpine.