PurposeTo adapt the segway RMP, a dynamically balancing robot base, to build robots capable of playing soccer autonomously.Design/methodology/approachFocuses on the electro‐mechanical mechanisms required to make the Segway RMP autonomous, sensitive, and able to control a football.FindingsFinds that turning a Segway RMP into a soccer‐playing robot requires a combined approach to the mechanics, electronics and software control.Research implicationsAlthough software algorithms necessary for autonomous operation and infrastructure supplying logging and debugging facilities have been developed, the scenario of humans and robots playing soccer together has yet to be addressed.Practical implicationsTurning the model into a soccer playing robot demonstrates the technique of combining mechanics, electronics and software control.Originality/valueShows how the model as a base platform can be developed into a fully functional, autonomous, soccer‐playing robot.

Abstract-In this paper, we make two contributions. First, we present a new domain, called Segway Soccer, for investigating the coordination of dynamically formed, mixed human-robot teams within the realm of a team task that requires real-time decision making and response. Segway Soccer is a game of soccer between two teams consisting of Segway riding humans and Segway RMP-based robots. We believe Segway Soccer is the first game involving both humans and robots in cooperative roles and with similar capabilities. In conjunction with this new domain, we present our work towards developing a soccer playing robot using the Segway RMP platform and vision as its primary sensing modality. As Segway Soccer is set in the outdoors, we have developed novel vision algorithms to adapt to changes in lighting conditions. We present the domain of Segway Soccer, its inherent challenges, and our work towards this goal.

-Recently, the company Segway LLC has released a dynamically balancing robot base, the Segway RMP, to complement their Segway scooters for human mobility. These robot bases provide exceptional robustness and capability with the unique feature of dynamic balancing at a human-size scale. We have addressed the challenge of using these Segway RMPs to build robots that are able to autonomously play soccer, building up upon our extensive previous work in this multi-robot research domain. This paper details our investigations towards developing an individually autonomous and capable robot. In particular, the focus is on the electro-mechanical mechanisms required to make a Segway RMP autonomous, able to sense its world, as well as manipulate and kick a soccer ball. In conjunction with the mechanisms required to make the robot physically capable, we detail our investigations into the control algorithms required to enable the robot to perceive, think, and act in real time for a dynamically changing world. While these techniques are applicable to many robot applications, dynamic balancing creates a number of unique challenges and opportunities that must be addressed. We examine these capabilities and limitations of the Segway and provide a detailed analysis of different mechanical and computational techniques to address these limitations. In this paper, we present empirical results examining the performance of our mechanisms and algorithms in the context of a fully functioning system.

Motivated by the differences between human and robot teams, we investigated the role of verbal communication between human teammates as they work together to move a large object to a series of target locations. Only one member of the group was told the target sequence by the experimenters, while the second teammate had no target knowledge. The two experimental conditions we compared were haptic-verbal (teammates are allowed to talk) and haptic only (no talking allowed). The team’s trajectory was recorded and evaluated. In addition, participants completed a NASA TLX-style postexperimental survey which gauges workload along 6 different dimensions. In our initial experiment we found no significant difference in performance when verbal communication was added. In a follow-up experiment, using a different manipulation task, we did find that the addition of verbal communication significantly improved performance and reduced the perceived workload. In both experiments, for the haptic-only condition, we found that a remarkable number of groups independently improvised common haptic communication protocols (CHIPs). We speculate that such protocols can be substituted for verbal communication and that the performance difference between verbal and nonverbal communication may be related to how easy it is to distinguish the CHIPs from motions required for task completion.

Abstract. The Segway Human Transport (HT) is a one person dynamically self-balancing transportation vehicle. The Segway Robot Mobility Platform (RMP) is a modification of the HT capable of being commanded by a computer for autonomous operation. With these platforms, we propose a new domain for human-robot coordination through a competitive game: Segway Soccer. The players include robots (RMPs) and humans (riding HTs). The rules of the game are a combination of soccer and Ultimate Frisbee rules. In this paper, we provide three contributions. First, we describe our proposed Segway Soccer domain. Second, we examine the capabilities and limitations of the Segway and the mechanical systems necessary to create a robot Segway Soccer Player. Third, we provide a detailed analysis of several ball manipulation/kicking systems and the implementation results of the CM-RMP pneumatic ball manipulation system.