Self-localisation of the robot on the field

Rules and Roadmap
#1

Line 409 states “Teams may not use any type of communication with robots in play that contains information which reduces the need for autonomy in detecting the current game state of the robots, including the position of the ball, the location where the robot re-enters the field and the position of team members or opponents.”

  1. Does “robots in play” include robots that are currently penalised and/or being serviced?
  • Does “current game state of the robots” include all the kinds of information that the game controller provides, such as for example whose kickoff it is? If so, how is gameplay supposed to work at all if there is no wifi or the game controller is out of order?
  • Is initialising just the orientation of the robot allowed, or is this banned just like the location where a robot re-enters the field? If no, how is the robot supposed to break the symmetry problem and localise?
#2
  1. In my opinion it does, but I agree it should be better clarified in the rules. We will add that.
  2. No, it does not. Since the game controller is providing this information anyway, there is no value in preventing teams to communicate this information.
  3. In my opinion initializing the orientation is an information about the current game state as well. With the new rules, the robot enters the field clearly within its own half of the field (around the penalty mark). This was changed on purpose to avoid that robots have trouble with their image recognition close to the center line. So no matter from which side the field player enters, the goal that is significantly closer to itself is its own goal. Our rule about re-entering is now similar to the SPL league, so I suggest a look into their code releases for further inspiration how to localize after re-entering the field.