Call for Applications for Participation RoboCup 2025 Standard Platform League spl.robocup.orghttps://spl.robocup.org/ Tuesday 15th July through Monday 21th July 2025 Salvador, Brazil 2025.robocup.orghttps://2025.robocup.org/

RoboCuphttps://www.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, RoboCupIndustrial, RoboCupJunior) involving mostly multi-robot systems. RoboCupSoccer 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 in the main competition while developing individual skills measured in various technical challenges. The SPL robot soccer team competition games at RoboCup 2025 will be played between teams of fully autonomous NAO robots. Participating teams may use V6, V5 or older versions of the NAO humanoid robot manufactured by Aldebaranhttps://www.aldebaran.com/en/nao. Teams should be able to play on a randomly assigned field within one hour.

The RoboCup 2025 SPL will host a soccer team competition, several technical challenges and introduce longterm leaderboards, detailed below.

The soccer team competition will consist of a number of games that is similar to recent years for most teams. The draft rule book for 2025 is available on on the downloads pagehttps://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2025. The league operates two divisions: Champions Cup (CC) and Challenge Shield (CS). Teams in the Champions Cup division will compete in matches with up to 7 robots per team. Teams in the Challenge Shield division will compete in matches with up to 5 robots per team. All teams are encouraged to compete in one or more challenges in addition to the main soccer competition.

There will be several challenges in 2025 in addition to the main soccer team competition: · The ’KICKin & Rollin’ Challenge, a standard out-of-game technical challenge designed to encourage teams to develop the best way to kick a rolling ball. · An open research challenge will be held to showcase innovations that contribute to the growth, development, and improvement of the league, beyond the core competition objectives. · There is a planned cross-league challenge to be conducted with the cooperation of the humanoid-league, similar to the 2021 passing challenge, additional details to follow as they are finalised. · Starting in 2025, several long-term leaderboards will be introduced to track and compare team performances across key skills over multiple years. These leaderboards aim to motivate teams to improve in specific areas deemed valuable by the league and to compile a record of the top-performing components and skills. More details regarding the challenges are given in the rule bookhttps://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2025 Joining the League

The league is always ready to welcome new teams. If you are considering joining: the league has prepared information for youhttps://spl.robocup.org/joining-robocup-spl/ to support you in your first steps. We encourage you to contact the organizing committees and other teams if you have questions.

To assist in adoption of NAO V6 robots, source code examples and documentation regarding V6 robots were published on the SPL websitehttps://spl.robocup.org/v6-support/. One can also find example code for V6 robots in the code released by participating teams. If you need access to the RoboCup NAOqi Image and the specific documentation, please write an email (mentioning your team affiliation and plans) to r*******c@lists.robocup.orgmailto:r*******c@lists.robocup.org.

Qualification

All interested teams that are not pre-qualified must apply by sending an email to the Technical Committee (see below). A valid application must contain: 1. Team Description Paper: See below. The TDP must be attached as PDF file to the email. 2. Preference to compete in the Champions Cup or Challenge Shield: State whether you prefer to compete in CC or CS. If you prefer to compete in CS, please state if you would accept an assignment to CC to balance the competition. 3. 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 2024 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. 4. Robot purchase plans: State how many NAO robots your team plans to buy this year. Pre-Qualification

Teams that finished in the top 3 of either the Champions Cup or Challenge Shield divisions or finished in the top 5 of the technical challenge at RoboCup 2024 are pre-qualified for RoboCup 2025, if they submit a valid application as detailed below. The following teams can make use of pre-qualification: · Bembelbots · B-Human · HTWK Robots · Nao Devils · RedbackBots · RoboEireann · R-ZWEI KICKERS · SPQR Team · WisTex United

A valid application for pre-qualified teams must contain all of the content mentioned above, without the need to provide a video presentation.

If a joint 2024 team splits, only one team can be pre-qualified for 2025 (please indicate which one).

Team Description Paper

Both regular and pre-qualified teams must submit a team description paper (TDP) attached as PDF file to their application email. For the TDP to be considered, it must: · be named according to the pattern SPL_2025_TDP_<TeamName>.pdf · be formatted according to the Springer LNCS author guidelines https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines . · be no longer than 8 pages (including references). · be structured in the following sections with the specified headings: 1. Team Information: · team name (the one true spelling, considering capitalization, spaces, hyphens, etc.) · team leader(s) · team contact email address · team website URL (if available) · country of origin · university/company affiliation(s) of the team 2. Code Usage: Acknowledge the team’s use of any other team’s code (1) previously from 2020 to present and (2) anticipated at RoboCup 2025. 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.1https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2025. 3. Own Contribution: Describe in detail the ‘research publishable’ significant advancements the applying team has made and is going to use at RoboCup 2025, in accordance with the rule book, section A.1https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2025. 4. Unpublished Results: Provide game results in RoboCup Regional Open competitions as well as main RoboCup competitions from 2020 onward that are not already published on the SPL websitehttps://spl.robocup.org/. 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 2025. 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. Other: Present any other information that you believe supports your application.

Please note that the TDP is not a peer-reviewed publication and will not appear in any collection apart from the RoboCup TDP archivehttps://tdp.robocup.org/.

Qualification for Regional Opens Only

Teams may also submit a short intent to participate in a regional open if they do not wish to participate in the 2025 RoboCup competition. Although teams may participate in regional opens without submitting this intent to participate, teams who submit an intent to participate and become qualified may be eligible for future special robot pricing. Special robot pricing for teams competing in RoboCup Events are still being discussed. Updates about special prices will be announced as soon as offers and conditions are finalized.

Teams must submit the following information by 17th of February 2025: (1) The team name, leader(s), and the university/company affiliation(s) of the team and (2) a short statement describing the status/progress of the team. A link to a short video showing robot soccer behaviours and/or game play (using robots or in simulation) may be included if available.

Submission and Evaluation

All applications with the (pre-)qualification material must be submitted by 17th of February 2025, by email to r*******c@lists.robocup.orgmailto:r*******c@lists.robocup.org. Please use a subject matching the pattern RoboCup 2025 Application <team name>.

Applications must not be sent to personal SPL TC/OC email addresses and must not contain video attachments.

By submitting your application, you grant the SPL committees the rights to publish the TDP and application video / code release link.

Note that applying serves as a statement of commitment to participate in the RoboCup 2025 SPL.

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 email. 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 by criteria which include: 1. Potential to play competitive games at RoboCup 2025 (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.)

Since 2023 the competition rules require all teams to release the source code for novel contributions. This ensures that all teams can learn from good solutions and all teams are driven to make improvements each year. More details regarding code releases are given in the rule bookhttps://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2025. All teams can expect to be required to publish a contribution.

As part of the application phase teams will be assigned into the CC and CS divisions. Assignments will be judged based on previous performance and application material. The organizing committees will do their best to honor teams’ preferences. However, the necessity might arise to assign teams into divisions against their preference. All teams applying for CC are expected to be able to compete in CS. Teams will be notified during the application phase if they are assigned into a division against their preference

Qualification decisions, including alternate lists, will be announced by 3rd of March 2025.

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. Tom Ellis, On behalf of the RoboCup 2025 Standard Platform League Technical and Organizing Committees