RoboCup, the five-year-old international sporting and scientific event featuring autonomous soccer-playing and rescue robots of all shapes and sizes took place in the U.S. from Aug. 2-10 in Seattle at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. The Robot Soccer Research Group from Tsinghua University carried off the first prize in the competitive event. The four-person team were madeup of students from the department of computer science.
The competition peaked for the finals on August 9th and 10th. All days were open to the public and media from 7:30am to 6:00pm.
RoboCup-2001 features teams of robots ranging in size from some so small they'll compete on a ping-pong table-sized field to others the size of adult humans. They've been developed by some of the brightest minds at academic institutions around the world doing research in multi-agent and multi-robot systems.
The robots met on the convention floor in four different competitions, including the Simulation League, Small-size Robot League, Middle-size Robot League and the Sony Legged Robot League. There were demonstrations of humanoid robots and a competition using robots to simulate a rescue mission in a real disaster scenario, like an earthquake or mudslide.
In order for the Robot to play a game of soccer, wide ranges of technology need to be integrated and numbers of technical breakthroughs must be accomplished, including new materials, sensors, artificial muscle, artificial intelligence, intelligent robotics, highly efficient battery, energy saving systems etc.
The first RoboCup competitions were held in 1997 in Nagoya, Japan, with 12 international teams participating. This year 132 teams from 33 countries were participated. Tsinghua took part in the competition for the first time this year.
RoboCup 2001 worldwide sponsors are Sony Corp. and SGI. The American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and Carnegie Mellon University are local sponsors. Carnegie Mellon has pioneered in the development of soccer-playing robots to investigate team learning for autonomous robots since 1995.
