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RoboCup 2010: Could Robot versus Human
Be Far Behind?
2010 July 27 By: Comixo Studio
As the World Cup races forward in South Africa a different kind of soccer tournament recently kicked off in Asia. And whereas debates in Cape Town and Johannesburg may center on the Jabulani ball's aerodynamics or the vuvuzela's "unique" sound, in Singapore coaches are more likely to worry whether their favorite player has blown a fuse, so to speak.
RoboCup 2010 marks the 14th year that hundreds of roboticists pit their mechanized creations against each other in five different soccer leagues. Some are reserved for two-legged, two-armed humanoids, whereas others are for small, wheeled robots that look like polka-dotted coffee cans. There's even a league just for virtual robots, where computer programs go head-to-head to test the limits of cooperative artificial intelligence.
A four legged league game from RoboCup 2004 in Lisbon, Portugal.
RoboCup is an international robotics competition founded in 1997. The aim is to develop autonomous soccer robots with the intention of promoting research and education in the field of artificial intelligence. The name RoboCup is a contraction of the competition's full name, "Robot Soccer World Cup", But there are many other stages of the competition such as "Search and Rescue" and "Robot Dancing".
The goal at RoboCup is not just to win but to push robotics in ways that apply in the real world—and to eventually build a team of robots that can beat the human World Cup champions. Humanoid robots have made great strides since their debut in the 2002 RoboCup, where they competed in four events: a penalty kick competition, a race, freestyle demonstrations, and the aptly titled "Standing Still on One Leg."
The official goal of the project: By mid-21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win the soccer game, complying with the official rule of the FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup.
Team Osaka's humanoid robots.
This year, some humanoids are playing soccer matches. The games are a little slower than the ones taking place in South Africa, but the bots attempt to pass, dribble and shoot, just like their human counterparts. Full-size biped robot strikers debut at this year's competition as human World Cup teams play on in South Africa.
AUTONOMOUS ATHLETE The RoboCup 2010 tournament currently underway includes a number of different robot soccer leagues that focus on different research challenges. The Standard Platform League is a RoboCup robot soccer league where all teams compete with identical Aldebaran Robotics NAO models, which operate fully autonomously.
CLEAN SHEET The soccer field is built on a total carpet area of length 7.4 meters and width 5.4 meters. All robot-visible lines on the soccer field (side lines, end lines, halfway line, centre circle, corner arcs, and the lines surrounding the penalty areas) are 50 millimeters in width. As with any other soccer competition, the goal is to shut out the other team.
PLAY MAKER The Standard Platform League was called "Sony Four-Legged League" until RoboCup 2004, because it was organized by Sony and the Sony AIBO was the only robot allowed in that league. Since the AIBO is not the only platform used anymore, the name of the league was changed to "Standard Platform League" after RoboCup 2007. In 2008 the league went through a transition from the four-legged Sony AIBO to the humanoid Aldebaran Nao (seen here).
PENALTY KICK The official ball is a Mylec orange street hockey ball. A penalty kick is carried out with one attacking robot and one opposing goal keeper. Other robots are powered off and stay outside of the field.
CHARLI New this year is an "AdultSize" league. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has entered CHARLI, a 1.5-meter-tall plastic and metal creation. CHARLI will have to locate the soccer ball, dribble it up the court, and kick it through the goal to win.
GMU PROTOTYPE STRIKER George Mason University's RoboPatriots are a team of three humanoid robots presented by the Department of Computer Science. For this year's RoboCup, the team has added a stereo vision system; upgraded to stronger, faster and more durable motors; and streamlined its software architecture for speed and robustness.
Robocup Soccer 2010 Germany / Germany (Final) ~
Since 2006 these robots have been around in one form or another. Their developers constantly kept on upgrading them and the latest extensive programming just proved that Nao holds a promising future in the robot industry.
If we look at things on a bigger level, a Robotic World Cup is being prepared, which will only use robots as soccer players. There won’t be any external controls and the robots will be playing those soccer matches on their own. All the more, if this project is worked out, it will be a revolutionary change from technological perspective.
Sadly, Naos are not open for sale, so all interested people will have to wait for a few more years, until a final version is available for public use. Maybe for now, these robots may not win the “So you think you can Dance” competition, but pretty soon, Naos are going to make it big time.
World Premiere: 20 Nao Robots Dancing in Synchronized Harmony~
