Ok, so it’s not exactly Lionel Messi cutting through the middle of a defense, or Cristiano Ronaldo showing off his ball control skills en route to scoring a goal, but the robotics community continues to make strides in Robo-Soccer. The RoboCup Federation and the Mexican Robotics Federation are well underway with plans for the upcoming RoboCup 2012 which will be held in Mexico City June 18-24 of this year.
While it may be a bit premature to issue such a warning, care should be taken not confuse it with another soccer competition taking place at around the same time — the UEFA Euro2012 Final.
Although the ultimate dream of the RoboCup organization is to have its humanoid robots (like the Aldebarran Nao 25, pictured, right) compete against and emerge victorious against a reigning human World Cup winning team, the group admits that such a result might be considered a “dream” which they hope to achieve by the middle of the 21st century at the earliest. Nevertheless, they believe that today’s RoboCup competitions will serve as a vehicle to further promote robotics and artificial intelligence, or AI, research.
The upcoming event in Mexico City will feature Simulation Leagues (for 2D or 3D software simulations), and a series of robotic leagues (Small, Middle, Standard, Humanoid) with varying rules and robot sizes.
In the Humanoid League — further subdivided into 3 sub-leagues according to robot sizes (Teen, Kid, Adult) — autonomous robots play against each other. According to the RoboCup organizers:
Dynamic walking, running, and kicking the ball while maintaining balance, visual perception of the ball, other players, and the field, self-localization and team play are among the many research issues investigated in the league.
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