SSL-Vision: The Shared Vision System for the RoboCup Small Size League

The current RoboCup Small Size League rules allow every team to set up their own global vision system as a primary sensor. This option, which is used by all participating teams, bears several organizational limitations and thus impairs the league's progress. Additionally, most teams have converged on very similar solutions, and have produced only few significant research results to this global vision problem over the last years. Hence the responsible committees decided to migrate to a shared vision system (including also sharing the vision hardware) for all teams by 2010. This system - named SSL-Vision is currently developed by volunteers from participating teams. In this paper, we describe the current state of SSL-Vision, i. e. its software architecture as well as the approaches used for image processing and camera calibration, together with the intended process for its introduction and its use beyond the scope of the Small Size League.