IoT-based system for communication and coordination of football robot team

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop an information system which is based on the Internet of things (IoT) and used to support the communication and coordination in a cooperative robot team. Design/methodology/approach - The architecture of the IoT applications for decision- making activities in a complex system is elaborated, the focus lies on the effective implementation of system interactions at the device- level. A case study is provided to verify system performances. Findings - The IoT concept has been introduced in an information system of a football robot team to support the coordination among team players. Various sensors are used to collect data from IoT, and data are processed for the controls of robotic players to achieve the better performance at the system level. The field test has shown the feasibility and effectiveness. Research limitations/implications - To investigate how IoT can be utilized in an information system for making complex decisions effectively, the authors use the decision- support system for a football robot team to illustrate the approaches in developing data acquisition infrastructure, processing and utilizing real- time data for the communication and coordination of robot players in a dynamic competing environment. While the presented work has shown the feasibility of an IoT- based information system, more work are needed to integrate advanced sensors within the IoT and develop more intelligent algorithms to replace manually remote control for the operations of robot players. Practical implications - The proposed system is specifically for a football robot team; however, the associated approaches are applicable to any decentralized system for developing an information system to support IoT- based communication and coordination within the system in the real- time mode. Originality/value - The exploration of IoT applications is still at its early stage, existing relevant work is mostly limited to the development of system architecture, sensor networks, and communication protocols. In this paper, the methods on how to use massive real- time data for decision- making of a decentralized team have been investigated, and the proposed system has its theoretical significance to developing other decentralized wireless sensor networks and decision- making systems.