Interference and technical documentation

[Ardi123]

We are a team that competes in the LightWeight category on this year’s RoboCup Junior and since we could not resolve these two questions we decided to ask on the forum.

1. Why is interference caused by ultrasonic sensors tolerated? That is if both teams are using ultrasonic sensors and both claim that ultrasonic sensors from the other team cause interference should both teams turn of their sensors?
   What if only one team is affected and the other uses clever programming and filtering to make a more robust system.
   Should then also both teams turn them off?
   We are asking this because we want to use ir tof sensors and we want to know what measures we need to take in order not to interfere with sensors from the other teams ( we tried it on our sensors and they were not affected ) since many teams might use output that is not filtered or processed by other means.

2. Where can we find technical documentation from the last year’s teams, we found the collection of posters and that helped us a lot, but a lot of technical detail is missing?

[mareksuppa]

Hi @Ardi123,

Sorry for my late reply.

@Ardi123

Why is interference caused by ultrasonic sensors tolerated?

From my perspective the reasons seem to be mostly historical. In any event, I am pretty sure that at an actual competition any inference (whether caused by an ultrasonic sensor or anything else) would be dealt with and therefore would not really be tolerated. The reason why the rules do not mention it (and why it thus may look like such an inference would be tolerated) is that there historically were not many issues with ultrasonic sensors.

@Ardi123

That is if both teams are using ultrasonic sensors and both claim that ultrasonic sensors from the other team cause interference should both teams turn of their sensors?
What if only one team is affected and the other uses clever programming and filtering to make a more robust system.
Should then also both teams turn them off?

As my reply above suggests, the spirit of the rules is not to over regulate wherever possible. In this case, the local Organizational Committee would be called to resolve the situation. If it was my call, I would probably ask both teams to figure out how could they play together without affecting their opponents robots. If that was not possible, I’d probably ask both teams to turn off their sensors.

@Ardi123

We are asking this because we want to use ir tof sensors and we want to know what measures we need to take in order not to interfere with sensors from the other teams ( we tried it on our sensors and they were not affected ) since many teams might use output that is not filtered or processed by other means.

I would recommend using good judgment. If your sensors were not affected, I would assume there is a high chance other teams would not be affected either.

@Ardi123

Where can we find technical documentation from the last year’s teams, we found the collection of posters and that helped us a lot, but a lot of technical detail is missing?

Sadly, I do not think that technical documentation of teams competing at the international competition is publicly available in general. As I see it, the best way of getting access to it would be reaching out to the respective teams.

This is something that should certainly change in the future and when it does, it will most probably be announced on this forum.

Please feel free to let me know if this helps.

Thanks!

– Marek