This year’s game provides several scenarios where automated robot-to-robot coordination could be utilized (both between alliances and very decidedly within an alliance). This coordination could occur with or without driver control.
I’m not aware of any peer-to-peer protocol existing currently within the FIRST FRC robotics platform - yet the existence of such could enable a new-level of game-play and engineering innovation. One can imagine in 2012 the ability to communicate (via a blackboard-paradigm, perhaps) and coordinate dynamic tactical moves between 2-3 robots on the end-game bridge.
Another opportunity in 2012 is to communicate the expected path of each robot on an alliance in order to adaptively plot a robot’s path to avoid collision.
This may seem far-fetched, but it is a direction of current robotics research and future development. And what better place for it to grow than within the “Gracious Professionalism” environment filled w/the next generation of robotics professionals…
If anyone has any thoughts or is aware of any other initiatives in this direction, please let me know.