Dear SPL Teams,

This email is a*late call for applications to participate *in RoboCup 2022 Standard Platform League in some capacity, either on-site as normal or remotely in a limited capacity.

While we encourage all teams that are able to travel, even with a small number of member, to join us in Bangkok, the TC is aware that some teams have limitations on their ability to travel to Bangkok for the 2022 competition. Therefore, we would also like to encourage as many teams as possible to participate in RoboCup, whether on-site or in a remote setting. This is to maintain connections with the teams in our community and encourage teams to continue in their RoboCup research and software development.

Teams competing on-site will be able to participate in the soccer competition and challenges. Teams that compete remotely, would be able to participate only in the following technical challenges:

* Visual Referee Challenge * Dynamic Ball handling Challenge * Open Research Challenge

Remote teams will be unable to participate in the soccer competition, or the 7 vs 7 Technical Challenge. This is because of limited on-site technical and volunteer support, along with an insufficient pool of robots.

If you have questions about this late call for applications to participate on-site or remotely, please email the RoboCup TC (r*******c@lists.robocup.org).

Additionally, if you are unsure about the teams status and unable to apply by the deadline, but may wish to make a late application, please express your interest in a late application by the deadline.

Details of the call follow below:

Late call for applications to participate in RoboCup 2022 Standard Platform League

spl.robocup.org https://spl.robocup.org/

Monday 11th July through Sunday 17th July 2022 Bangkok, Thailand

2022.robocup.org https://2022.robocup.org/

RoboCup https://spl.robocup.org/ is an international initiative that fosters research and education in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence through a variety of competitions (RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue, RoboCup@Home, RoboCupJunior) involving mostly multi-robot systems. RoboCup currently includes a number of different robot soccer leagues that focus on different research challenges. *The Standard Platform League (SPL)* is characterized by all the teams using an identical robot platform. Participating researchers focus on algorithmic development for fully autonomous robots, i.e., robots that operate with no external control.

In this late call we encourage applications to participate in the RoboCup 2022 SPL either on-site in Bangkok or remotely.

On-site participation

The SPL at RoboCup 2022 will use V6, V5 or older versions of the NAO humanoid robot manufactured by SoftBank Robotics https://www.softbankrobotics.com/emea/en/nao. The SPL robot soccer team competition games at RoboCup 2022 will be played indoor and outdoor between teams of five robots on a 6m x 9m playing surface. Teams should be able to play on a randomly assigned indoor or outdoor field within one hour. The RoboCup 2022 SPL will host:

* A 5 vs. 5 team competition as the main competition of the event. * A 7 vs. 7 competition. * A visual referee technical challenge. * A dynamic ball handling technical challenge. * A video analysis and statistics open research challenge.

The 5 vs. 5 team competition will consist of a similar number of games for most teams compared to recent years. The structure from 2019 will be used to allow all teams to play games against teams with similar skill levels. See Appendix A.4 of the preliminary rulebook https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/ for more details. The teams participating in the team competition should also compete in some of the additional technical challenges. The 7 vs. 7 side competition extends the ideas from the mixed team competition, and 1 vs. 1 remote challenge from RoboCup 2021 to a standardized 7 vs. 7 NAO V6 on-site competition. Its goal is to encourage more collaborative game play and offer a chance for teams to work together more closely. Participating in 7 vs. 7 is recognized as participation in a technical challenge. Additional technical challenges offered at the competition are the visual referee challenge and the dynamic ball handling challenge. The open research challenge aims to provide the SPL with long term performance statistics based on video analysis. Please note that the open research challenge comes with additional deadlines as mentioned in the rulebook. All challenges will be detailed further with the release of the SPL rules document. To assist in adoption of V6 Robots source code examples and documentation regarding V6 robots were published on the SPL website https://spl.robocup.org/v6-support/. One can also find example code working with V6 Robots in the code released by participating teams. These examples allow teams to adapt their competition code from recent years more easily to encourage use of V6 Robots. If you need access to the RoboCup NAOqi Image and the specific documentation, please write an email (mentioning your team affiliation) to r*******c@lists.robocup.org mailto:r*******c@lists.robocup.org.

Remote participation in challenges

For those teams that are not able to travel and compete on-site, we offer the possibility of remote participation in the following challenges:

* Visual Referee Technical Challenge * Dynamic Ball handling Technical Challenge * A video analysis and statistics open research challenge

Remote teams will be unable to participate in the soccer competition, or the 7 vs 7 Technical Challenge.

Teams that wish to compete remotely may do so via a live stream of their technical challenge performance at their assigned time, similar to participation in RoboCup 2021. (For the dynamic ball handling challenge the TC is currently considering a limited on-site robot pool to allow teams to participate if they do not have 6 functional robots with which to conduct the challenge demonstration. However, a final decision on this has not yet been made.)

Qualification

All interested teams (whether participating on-site or remotely) must submit an original qualification document. For the qualification document to be considered, it must (1) be no longer than *6 pages* and (2) include all the following information in *sections with the specified headings*:

1. *Team Information:* the team name, the team leader(s), and the university/company affiliation(s) of the team 2. *Code Usage:* Acknowledge the team’s use of any other team’s code (1) previously from 2017 to present and (2) anticipated at RoboCup 2022. If code is used from other teams, is this code integrated into a code base that is mainly designed by the applying team? If the applying team does not use any other team’s code, state so. For further details, please have a look into the rule book, section A.1 https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/. 3. *Own Contribution:* Describe in detail the ‘research publishable’ significant advancements the applying team has made and is going to use at RoboCup 2022, in accordance with the rule book, section A.1 https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/. 4. *Past History:* provide game results in RoboCup Open competitions as well as main RoboCup competitions from 2018 onward. Include opponents and game scores from each competition in a table. State if the team plans to participate in any RoboCup Open competitions or friendlies prior to RoboCup 2022. 5. *Impact:* What is the impact of the team’s participation and research in RoboCup on (1) the SPL, (2) the team’s university/community? 6. *Video presentation:* Include a link to a video (maximum 5 minutes long, uploaded on the team’s web site or on some video server) that demonstrates the status of the team. The organizing committees use the video to determine the readiness of the team to compete effectively, and hence should focus on the team’s ability to play soccer. Teams who did not participate in the team competition at RoboCup 2019 or any challenge at RoboCup 2021 *must* include footage of at least one robot attempting to kick off and score (this footage must be captured as a single wide shot with no cuts). If robots from multiple teams are active in the footage (e.g., game footage), please include a textual overlay or additional document denoting which robots belong to the applying team for every scene. Videos of simulation contributions will also be accepted, but only when a real robot is unavailable. Preference will be given to teams that use real robots to show soccer skills in their video. 7. *Other:* Present any other information that you believe supports your application.

If your application mentions more than one e-mail address, please specify which one should be used to contact your team regarding your application.

Submission and Evaluation

All applications with the (pre-)qualification material must be submitted by*13**th of April 2022*, by email to r*******c@lists.robocup.org mailto:r*******c@lists.robocup.org. Applications must not be sent to personal SPL TC/OC email addresses and must not contain video attachments. Note that applying serves as a statement of commitment to participate in the RoboCup 2022 SPL. The organizing committees are aware of the ongoing COVID situation and assume that all applications are subject to withdrawal due to COVID. Applications are not required to mention uncertainties related to COVID to avoid negative effects on future applications. We would rather encourage teams to plan optimistically and sign up with the possibility of withdrawing if situation requires it. For situations other than COVID: If you have doubts regarding the ability of your team to participate (due to funding, visas, etc.), please apply by the deadline but note this in your application. Declining to participate in any competition after the official early registration period has opened may negatively affect future applications (the later you decline, the worse it will affect future applications). Teams are encouraged to consider joint participation. Joint proposals will be judged on combined merit. Applications will be evaluated to consider a variety of components including:

1. Potential to play competitive games or participate in challenges at RoboCup 2022 (demonstrated ability to play soccer, previous results, etc.) 2. Contributions (and potential contributions) to league (code releases/papers, active in organization, developing own code, etc.) 3. Diversity (region, team make-up, unique characteristics, etc.)

Late qualification decisions will be announced shortly after the late application deadline above.

Robot Acquisition

Teams who submit an intent to participate and become qualified will be eligible for potential future special robot pricing. Special robot pricing for team competing in RoboCup Events are still being discussed. Updates about special prices will be announced if offers and conditions are finalized. /RoboCup 2022 Standard Platform League Technical and Organizing Committees/ / /