Toni: A soccer playing humanoid robot

Abstract

This paper describes the humanoid robot Toni that has been designed to play soccer in the RoboCup Humanoid League. The paper details Toni's mechanical and electrical design, perception, self localization, behavior control, and infrastructure. Toni is fully autonomous, has a low weight (2.2kg), and is much taller (74cm) than most servo-driven humanoid robots. It has a wide field of view camera, ample computing power, and wireless communication. Toni possesses basic soccer skills. It walks dynamically in all directions (up to 20cm/s in forward direction) and turns on the spot. It perceives the ball and the goals and localizes itself on the field. Toni is able to approach the ball and to dribble it. It can kick the ball without falling. We performed tests in our lab and penalty kick demonstrations at RoboCup German Open 2005. Toni's successors Jupp, Sepp, and Max performed well at the RoboCup 2005 Humanoid League competitions. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.