AutoRef system architecture: Difference between revisions
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==Background== | ==Background== | ||
A systems thinking analysis initiated the development of AutoRef's system architecture with respect to its goal as an autonomous referee system for RoboCup MSL. This process identified two primary stakeholder concerns: | A systems thinking analysis by MSD 2020 initiated the development of AutoRef's system architecture with respect to its goal as an autonomous referee system for RoboCup MSL. This process identified two primary stakeholder concerns: | ||
*'''Fairness''', a concern for the RoboCup committee, soccer teams, and spectators. | *'''Fairness''', a concern for the RoboCup committee, soccer teams, and spectators. | ||
*'''Project continuity''', a concern for AutoRef stakeholders and teams. | *'''Project continuity''', a concern for AutoRef stakeholders and teams. | ||
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The systems thinking analysis also showed that one of the most important and difficult refereeing duties with respect to ensuring the fairness concern is enforcing all the laws of the MSL rulebook. | The systems thinking analysis also showed that one of the most important and difficult refereeing duties with respect to ensuring the fairness concern is enforcing all the laws of the MSL rulebook. | ||
The archiving of past work ran parallel to this systems thinking process. Specifically, past work was analyzed and main continuity issues were identified based on the patterns observed in past generations’ work. Two main issues identified by this archiving were: | |||
*the lack of an overarching structure and goal for all generations; and | |||
*the lack of an easy and quick overview of what past generations have done and what is yet to be done. | |||
Combining the output from both processes led to the idea of creating a global structure that translates laws from the law book into enforcement tasks to clarify what a referee should do to enforce a certain law. It was later concluded that having a structure with a single layer is not enough, thus an extra layer was added to the structure (skill) to add value to the purpose of that structure. That extra layer is mostly used to clarify the kind of information that needs to be collected from the surrounding to perform an enforcement task. | Combining the output from both processes led to the idea of creating a global structure that translates laws from the law book into enforcement tasks to clarify what a referee should do to enforce a certain law. It was later concluded that having a structure with a single layer is not enough, thus an extra layer was added to the structure (skill) to add value to the purpose of that structure. That extra layer is mostly used to clarify the kind of information that needs to be collected from the surrounding to perform an enforcement task. | ||
Revision as of 17:47, 31 March 2021
The system architecture for the AutoRef autonomous referee for RoboCup Middle Size League (MSL) robot soccer is a proposed conceptual model which describes the structure, behavior, and more views of the AutoRef system.
The system architecture is based on the specification of functions as derived from the MSL rulebook (v21.4). In short, this functional specification (as provided by AutoRef MSD 2020) is a breakdown of MSL rulebook laws into robot skills through robot tasks: tasks are statements describing what the AutoRef must do to enforce the rules, written in plain language as to fully explain referee actions without describing the means by which to achieve them; skills are fundamental abilities which are needed to accomplish a specific task. A systems thinking approach underscores the system architecture.
Recommendations for future work emphasize an updated functional decomposition to synchronize the textual breakdown of law-task-skill and the corresponding game state flow visualization.
System architectures proposed by teams prior to MSD 2020 are available within their respective AutoRef team contribution pages.
Background
A systems thinking analysis by MSD 2020 initiated the development of AutoRef's system architecture with respect to its goal as an autonomous referee system for RoboCup MSL. This process identified two primary stakeholder concerns:
- Fairness, a concern for the RoboCup committee, soccer teams, and spectators.
- Project continuity, a concern for AutoRef stakeholders and teams.
The systems thinking analysis also showed that one of the most important and difficult refereeing duties with respect to ensuring the fairness concern is enforcing all the laws of the MSL rulebook.
The archiving of past work ran parallel to this systems thinking process. Specifically, past work was analyzed and main continuity issues were identified based on the patterns observed in past generations’ work. Two main issues identified by this archiving were:
- the lack of an overarching structure and goal for all generations; and
- the lack of an easy and quick overview of what past generations have done and what is yet to be done.
Combining the output from both processes led to the idea of creating a global structure that translates laws from the law book into enforcement tasks to clarify what a referee should do to enforce a certain law. It was later concluded that having a structure with a single layer is not enough, thus an extra layer was added to the structure (skill) to add value to the purpose of that structure. That extra layer is mostly used to clarify the kind of information that needs to be collected from the surrounding to perform an enforcement task.
To better help in the understanding of the problem and proposed solution, think of the project as a huge puzzle with a lot of puzzle pieces. With each generation a new fresh puzzle piece is added to the collection of pieces, but in a very unstructured manner, making it difficult for the following year to integrate their piece to previously developed pieces. The lack of a grid or puzzle layout also made it very difficult for new generations to have a global understanding of the whole system, and thus a lot of time was spent in trying to understand and analyze the big picture. The provided solution is to introduce that grid and identify all the needed puzzle pieces within the scope of the Lawbook. In reality, this project is a bit more complex than a puzzle, and having a grid with all pieces identified did not seem enough to streamline the development process for all generations, so a visualization showing the connections between different areas of the puzzle was also added.
Obsolete
Stakeholder concerns
An analysis of concerns for the AutoRef system led to the definition of two key concerns: continuity and fairness.
Continuity
Concern for continuity in AutoRef's development was particularly a stepping point for the system architecture's development.
Archive team of MSD 2020 concluded continuity was not emphasized or achieved [better word choice] by previous team contributions to AutoRef. The archive team's analysis justified/proved stakeholders concern regarding continuity.
This archiving concluded that this continuity was not achieved partly due to:
- unclear global overarching structure
- lack of an overview across previous team contributions
Outcome
The archiving process's result that a clearly defined global overarching structure was missing combined with the systems thinking's analysis of stakeholder concerns (for continuity) led to the conclusion that the translation of laws in the MSL rulebook into ...
Law-task-skill
Decided to translate rulebook from laws to tasks and break them down into skills.
Why? Referee must enforce rules — primary function/duty of a referee.