Applied Research

"Challenge for the technology"

 

RoboCup is an international research and an educational initiative. Its goal is to foster artificial intelligence and robotics research by providing a standard problem where a wide range of technologies can be examined and integrated.

 

For this purpose, the project chose to use soccer game as a primary domain, and organized RoboCup (The Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences). In order for a robot team to actually perform a soccer game, various technologies must be incorporated, such as: designing principles of autonomous agents, multi-agent collaboration, strategy acquisition, real-time reasoning, robotics, and sensor-fusion. RoboCup is a task for a team of multiple fast-moving robots under a dynamic environment. RoboCup also offers a software platform for research on the software aspects of RoboCup.

 

While soccer game is used as a standard problem where broad-range of efforts will be concentrated and integrated, competition is only a part of RoboCup activity. Nevertheless, RoboCup International Competitions and Conferences are the central pillar of our activity where researchers can get together and evaluate research progress. Current activities of the RoboCup consist of:

• Technical Conferences
• RoboCup International Competitions and Conferences
• RoboCup Challenge Programs
• Education Programs
• Infrastructure Development

Currently, RoboCup has three major domains:

RoboCupSoccer

1. Simulation League

• Small Size Robot League (f-180)
• Middle Size Robot League (f-2000)
• Four-Legged Robot League
• Humanoid League (from 2002)
• E-League (from 2004)
• RoboCup Commentator Exhibition

 

2. RoboCupRescue

• Rescue Simulation League
• Rescue Robot League

 

3. RoboCupJunior

• Soccer Challenge
• Dance Challenge
• Rescue Challenge

 

1. RoboCupSoccer

The main focus of the RoboCup activities is competitive football. The Games are important opportunities for researchers to exchange technical information. They also serve as a great opportunity to educate and entertain the public. RoboCupSoccer is divided into the following leagues:

 

Simulation league

Independently moving software players (agents) play soccer on a virtual field inside a computer. Matches have 5-minute halves. This is one of the oldest fleet in RoboCupSoccer. There are three competitions in this league; coach, 2D and 3D.

 

Small-size robot league (f-180)

Small robots of no more than 18 cm in diameter play soccer with an orange golf ball in teams of up to 5 robots on a field a bit bigger than a ping-pong table. Matches have 10-minute halves.
 

 

Middle-size robot league (f-2000)

Middle-sized robots of no more than 50 cm square play soccer in teams of 4 to 6 robots with an orange soccer ball on a 12x8 metres . Matches are divided in 10-minute halves. Each team develops their own robots, so various robots play in different styles.

 

Four-legged robot league

Teams of 4 four-legged entertainment robots (Sony's AIBO) play football with an orange ball. The size of the field is 4m x 6m. All the computation is done on the board computer. Matches have 10-minute halves.

 

Humanoid league

This league was introduced in 2002 and the robots will have their fourth appearance ever in this year's RoboCup. Biped autonomous humanoid robots compete in "penalty kick," and "1 vs. 1", "2 vs. 2" matches. "Free style" competitions are to be expected as well.

 

E-League (dating from 2004)

E-League is the newest version of the League, come out in 2004 in Lisbon, after having a first demonstration in Padova under the name of U-League. The League is a simplified version of the small size robots league using the same software, the same manner of transmitting information (that is by infrared) and several restrictions on the robots' complexity. Its aim is to give an alternative participation within RoboCup for students. Students, who because of different reasons don't have the chance to be part of the universitary teams or seniors' team, have the possibility to make up their own E-League.

 

2. RoboCupRescue

Disaster rescue is one of the most serious issues involving very large numbers of heterogeneous agents in a hostile environment. The RoboCupRescue project intends to promote research and development in this significant domain by involving multi-agent team work coordination, physical robotic agents for search and rescue, information infrastructures, personal digital assistants, standard simulator and decision support systems, evaluation benchmarks for rescue strategies and robotic systems that wil be all integrated into a future comprehensive system. RoboCupRescue is divided into the following leagues:

• Rescue Robot league
• Rescue simulation league

 

3. RoboCupJunior

RoboCupJunior is a project-oriented educational initiative that sponsors local, regional and international robotic events for young students. It is designed to introduce RoboCup to primary and secondary school children, as well as undergraduates who do not have the resources to get involved in the senior leagues yet. The Junior league focuses on education.

 

RoboCup Junior offers several challenges, each emphasizing both cooperative and competitive aspects. For young students, RoboCupJunior provides an exciting introduction to the field of robotics, a new way to develop technical abilities through hands-on experience with electronics, hardware and software, and a highly motivating opportunity to learn about teamwork while sharing technology with friends.

 

In contrast to the one-child-one-computer scenario typically seen today, RoboCupJunior provides a unique opportunity for participants with a variety of interests and strengths to work together as a team to achieve a common goal. 

• Soccer Challenge
• Rescue Challenge
• Dance Challenge

In the history of artificial intelligence and robotics, the year 1997 will be remembered as a turning point. In May 1997, IBM Deep Blue defeated the human world champion in chess. Forty years of challenge in the AI community came to a successful conclusion. On July 4, 1997, NASA's pathfinder mission made a successful landing and the first autonomous robotics system, Sojourner, was deployed on the surface of Mars. Together with these accomplishments, RoboCup made its first steps toward the development of robotic soccer players which can beat a human World Cup champion team.

 

The idea of robots playing soccer was first mentioned by Professor Alan Mackworth (University of British Columbia, Canada) in a paper entitled "On Seeing Robots" presented at VI-92, 1992 that was later published in a book Computer Vision: System, Theory, and Applications, pages 1-13, World Scientific Press, Singapore, 1993. A series of papers on the Dynamo robot soccer project was published by his group.

 

Independently, a group of Japanese researchers organized a Workshop on Grand Challenges in Artificial Intelligence in October, 1992 in Tokyo, discussing possible grand challenge problems. This workshop led to a series of discussions about using the game of soccer for promoting science and technology. A series of investigation were carried out, including a technology feasibility study, a social impact assessment, and a financial feasibility study. In addition, rules were drafted, as well as prototype development of soccer robots and simulator systems.

 

As a result of these studies, we concluded that the project is feasible and desirable. In June 1993, a group of researchers, including Minoru Asada, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Hiroaki Kitano, decided to launch a robotic competition, tentatively named the Robot J-League (J-League is the name of the newly established Japanese Professional soccer league). Within a month, however, we received overwhelming reactions from researchers outside Japan, requesting that the initiative be extended as an international joint project. Accordingly, we renamed the project as the Robot World Cup Initiative or "RoboCup" for short.

RoboCup 2005 was held in Osaka, Japan. July 13-17 for competition, July 18 and 19 for the symposium.

 

The Football World Championships for Robots are part of the 9th RoboCup International Competitions and Conferences from 13th July to 19th July, 2005 to take place in Osaka, Japan.

 

The tournament will be held in INTEX Osaka, located in the bay area of the Osaka, one of the most vibrant cities in Japan for business or entertainment. The city of Osaka hosts this unique world robotics event, in the scope of encouraging the collaboration between the academic and industry, and being a centre of the robotics researches and industries in the future.

 

Increasing Popularity

The entries for RoboCup Osaka 2005 by teams from all over the world have exceeded the expectations and experiences of former editions. Teams from 35 countries with more than 400 teams, approx. twelve hundred members intend to take part. Most entries came from Japan, Germany, Iran, China, and USA (for list of countries please refer to page 5 of this release). In the host country Japan robotics in general and RoboCup in particular have attracted an increasing number of scholars and industry, and this gradual development has been awarded the organisation of this year's RoboCup by the RoboCup Federation.

ROPARDO (Wittmann & Partner Computer Systems), in collaboration with OXSY (Oxygen Systems) team participates at the Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences event, the most important competition in robotics and artificial intelligence area which took place between 13 and 17 July, in Osaka, Japan, the scientific symposium associated with the event being held in 18 and 19 July. In the context of these manifestations, the research centers from the entire world confront robot teams, coordinated by software programs, which play soccer games.

 

In Sibiu, the first team to participate at the international RoboCup competition was accomplished by Sibiu Team, a robot team developed by the software company ROPARDO (Wittmann & Partner Computer Systems), the only private company in Romania involved in research activities, and participating at RoboCup.

 

ROPARDO (Wittmann & Partner) has been involved in the RoboCup research project starting with 1999, when it participated, together with "Lucian Blaga" University, Sibiu at the final phase of the Stockholm edition, the following year being qualified for the 2000 edition, at Melbourne, in Australia. This year, our company is at the third year participation.

 

Starting with 2001, ROPARDO (Wittmann & Partner) got  involved in the competition, introducing BS  - Eng. Sebastian Marian in this area. Sebastian Marian is the founder of the OXSY (Oxygen Systems) team that took part at the competition in 2003 at Padua, Italy, being classified on the first place in the group phase (the system is similar with the one used in the world soccer championship) and in 2004 at Lisbon, in Portugal, being classified on the 11th place in the "Simulation Soccer League" category. Starting with this year, OXSY team has re-started the collaboration with ROPARDO (Wittmann & Partner), together with who they will continue the research activity in this area.

 

Pictures:

First day at RoboCup 2005

 

RoboCup Day 1

 

RoboCup Day 2