RoboCup is an international robotics competition founded in 1997. The aim is to develop autonomous soccer robot

Soccer robot

A football robot is a specialized autonomous robot and mobile robot that is used to play variants of soccer.The main organised competitions are RoboCup or FIRA tournaments played each year.The RoboCup contest currently has a number of soccer leagues:...

s with the intention of promoting research and education in the field of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

. The name RoboCup is a contraction of the competition's full name, "Robot Soccer World Cup

FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...

", but there are many other stages of the competition such as "Search and Rescue" and "Robot Dancing".

The official goal of the project:

By mid-21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid

Humanoid

A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...

 robot

Robot

A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...

 soccer players shall win the soccer game, complying with the official rule of the FIFA

FIFA

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...

, against the winner of the most recent World Cup

FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...

.

RoboCup Leagues

The contest currently has four major competition domains, each with a number of leagues and subleagues:

• RoboCup Soccer
  • Standard Platform League
    RoboCup Standard Platform League
    The RoboCup Standard Platform League is one of several leagues within RoboCup, an international competition with autonomous robotic soccer matches as the main event.-Overview:...
    
     (formerly Four Legged League)
  • Small Size League
    RoboCup Small Size League
    The RoboCup Small Size League is one of the RoboCup Soccer leagues.Two teams of five robots which are limited to a 18 cm diameter and 15 cm height play soccer with an orange golf ball. They are identified and tracked by two overhead cameras connected to a off-field computer. Then robots'...
    
    
  • Middle Size League
    RoboCup Middle Size League
    The RoboCup Middle Size League or MSL is one of the RoboCup robot soccer leagues.Two teams of 5 mid-sized robots with all sensors on-board play soccer on a field...
    
    
  • Simulation League
    RoboCup Simulation League
    The RoboCup Simulation League is one of five soccer leagues within the RoboCup initiative.It is characterised by independently moving software players that play soccer on a virtual field inside a computer simulation....
    
    
    • 2D Soccer Simulation
      RoboCup 2D Soccer Simulation League
      The RoboCup 2D Simulated Soccer League is the oldest of the RoboCup Soccer Simulation Leagues. It consists of a number of competitions with computer simulated soccer matches as the main event....
      
      
    • 3D Soccer Simulation
      RoboCup 3D Soccer Simulation League
      The RoboCup 3D Simulated Soccer League allows software agents to control humanoid robots to compete against one another in a realistic simulation of the rules and physics of a game of soccer. The platform strives to reproduce the software programming challenges faced when building real physical...
      
       | Soccer Simulation 3D League Homepage
    • 3D Development
    • Mixed Reality Soccer Competition | Soccer Mixed Reality Competition Homepage (formerly Physical Visualization)
  • Humanoid League Humanoid League homepage
• RoboCup Rescue Rescue Leagues Homepage
  • Rescue Robot League
    Rescue Robot League
    The RoboCup Rescue Robot League is an international competition for urban search and rescue robots, in which robots compete to find victims in a simulated earthquake environment...
    
    
  • Rescue Simulation League
    Robocup Rescue Simulation
    Robocup Rescue Simulation is an education and research project intended to promote the development of robotic agents for search and rescue. The project was initiated in reaction to the Great Hanshin earthquake, which hit Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, on 17 January 1995, killing more than six thousand...
    
    
• RoboCup@Home, which debuted in 2006, and focuses on the introduction of autonomous robots to human society.
• RoboCupJunior
  RoboCup Junior
  RoboCup Junior is a division of RoboCup, a not-for-profit robotics organisation. It focuses on education and aims to introduce the larger goals of the RoboCup project to primary and secondary school aged children...
  
  
  • Soccer Challenge
  • Dance Challenge
  • Rescue Challenge
  • General

Each team is fully autonomous in all RoboCup leagues. Once the game starts, the only input from any human is from the referee.

Venues

{| class="wikitable" width="75%"
|-
! Venue
! Number of teams
! Number of countries
! Number of participants
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2012 Mexico City - Mexico
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2011 Istanbul - Turkey
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2010 Singapore
| align="center" | 500
| align="center" | 40
| align="center" | 3,000
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2009 Graz - Austria
| align="center" | 407
| align="center" | 43
| align="center" | 2,472
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2008 Suzhou - China
| align="center" | 373
| align="center" | 35
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2007 Atlanta - USA
| align="center" | 321
| align="center" | 39
| align="center" | 1,966
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2006 Bremen - Germany
| align="center" | 440
| align="center" | 35
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2004 Lisbon - Portugal
| align="center" | 345
| align="center" | 37
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2003 Padua - Italy
| align="center" | 238
| align="center" | 35
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2001 Seattle - USA
| align="center" | 141
| align="center" | 22
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 2000 Melbourne - Australia
| align="center" | 110
| align="center" | 19
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 1999 Stockholm - Sweden
| align="center" | 85
| align="center" | 23
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 1998 Paris - France
| align="center" | 63
| align="center" | 19
| align="center" |
|-
| align="left" | RoboCup 1997 Nagoya - Japan
| align="center" | 38
| align="center" | 11
| align="center" |
|-

External links

• RoboCup Federation official website

2011

• Robocup German Open, Magdeburg, Germany
• IranOpen 2011 Tehran, Iran

2010

• IranOpen 2010 Tehran, Iran
• Latin America & Brazil Open 2010, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil
• Robocup Mediterranean Open 2010, Rome, Italy
• Robocup German Open (un-official all-european tournament), Magdeburg, Germany
• AUT cup 2010 Tehran,Iran

RoboCup teams

• • rUNSWift - University of New South Wales, Sydney
  • NUbots - University of Newcastle
  • UTS Unleashed! - University of Technology, Sydney
  • UTS-USTC WrightEagle Unleashed! - University of Technology, Sydney and University of Science and Technology of China
  • Karachi Koalas - University of Technology, Sydney and Institute of Business Administration, Pakistan
  • RobotAssist - Centre for Autonomous Systems, Sydney
  • Mostly Harmless–Graz University of Technology

• • ITANDROIDS - ITA
  • Bahia Robotics Team, Bahia State University
  • RoboFEI – Centro Universitário da FEI
  • NIPAR - UTFPR

• • Thunderbots - University of British Columbia

• • WrightEagle - University of Science and Technology of China
  • AUA - Anhui University of Architecture

• • Botnia–Vaasa University of Applied Sciences

• • See also Official German RoboCup Site
  • AllemaniACs RoboCup Team, RWTH Aachen University
  • Nao-Team HTWK, HTWK-Leipzig
  • b-it bots, Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences
  • B-Smart - University of Bremen
  • Brainstormers–University of Osnabrueck
  • C-PALB–CJD High School Königswinter
  • Carpe Noctem - University of Kassel
  • NimbRo - University of Bonn
  • Virtual Werder 3D - University of Bremen
  • Bembelbots - University of Frankfurt
  • FUmanoids - Freie Universität Berlin
  • magmaOffenburg - Hochschule Offenburg
  • Darmstadt Dribblers - Technische Universität Darmstadt
  • NaoTH - Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
  • WF Wolves - Ostfalia - Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften

• • Kouretes - Technical University of Crete

• • IUST Robotics Community Teams, [Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran]
  • MRL Teams, [Mechatronics Research Laboratory, Qazvin, Iran]
  • XeneX RoboCup Team, Tehran RoboCup Inc
  • Parsian Team – Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic)
  • Impossibles Team–Sharif University of Technology
  • Persian Gulf RoboCup Team - Azad University
  • BraveCircles - SheikhBahaee University
  • PersianGulf3D - Shiraz Payam Noor University
  • Persia Humanoid Team - Islamic Azad University Of Isfahan (Khurasgan Branch)

• • BURST, Bar Ilan University

• • dInfoBots–University of Palermo

• • Eagle Knights - Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México
  • Borregos RoboCup Teams - Monterrey Tech
  • Cyberlords - Universidad La Salle
  • Leones - Colegio Cristóbal Colón De la Salle
  • TecRams ITESM-CEM Aibo Team

• • Tech United Eindhoven - TU/e
  • Dutch Robotics - 3TU
  • Little Green BATS - University of Groningen
  • http://www.dutchnaoteam.nlDutch Nao Team - Universiteit van Amsterdam
    Universiteit van Amsterdam
    The University of Amsterdam or the UvA is a public research university located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Founded in 1632 as the Athenaeum Illustre by the scholars Gerardus Vossius and Caspar Barlaeus, it is the third-oldest university in the Netherlands...
    
    ]

• • SAVIOUR, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology
  • Karachi Koalas - Institute of Business Administration, Pakistan and University of Technology, Sydney

• • ISocRob / UInstitute for Systems and Robotics, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon TU
  • CAMBADA - IEETA / University of Aveiro

• • Oxsy - Sibiu

• • Grupo de Investigación de Ingeniería Aplicada (GIIA), University of Murcia
    University of Murcia
    The University of Murcia is the main university in Murcia, Spain. With 38,000 students, it is the largest university in the Región de Murcia.-History:...
    
    .
  • SPIteam, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Rovira i Virgili University and University of Leon

• • Plasma-Z, Plasma-RX, Plasma-MK - Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
  • SKUBA - Kasetsart University, Bangkok

• • Cerberus, Bogazici University, Istanbul
  • RoboAKUT, Bogazici University, Istanbul
  • beeStanbul, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul

• • Warwick Mobile Robotics - University of Warwick
  • Bold Hearts - University of Hertfordshire
  • Edinferno - University of Edinburgh

• • CMDragons - Carnegie Mellon University
  • ISIS, University of Southern California
  • Northern Bites - Bowdoin College
  • RFC Cambridge - Harvard University and MIT
  • RoboCats - Ohio University Athens, Ohio
  • RoboJackets – Georgia Institute of Technology
  • RoboPatriots - George Mason University
  • UT Austin Villa - The University of Texas at Austin
  • RoMeLa - Virginia Tech

Media Articles

• No feel for the ball, on the 2006 RoboCup in Bremen, at signandsight.com
• RoboCup Atlanta Report, the 2007 RoboCup in Atlanta, at SaySport
• RoboCup Istanbul Report, The RoboCup 2011 report by BBC

See also

• RoboCup Junior
  RoboCup Junior
  RoboCup Junior is a division of RoboCup, a not-for-profit robotics organisation. It focuses on education and aims to introduce the larger goals of the RoboCup project to primary and secondary school aged children...
  
  
• Robot
  Robot
  A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
  
  
• Botball
  Botball
  Botball is an educational robotics program that focuses on engaging middle and high school aged students in team-oriented robotics competitions. Thousands of children and young adults participate in Botball’s program...
  
  
• FIRST
  First
  First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one.First or 1st may also refer to:* First , minor summit below the Schwarzhorn in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland* First , mountain in Bernese Alps in Switzerland...
  
  
• BEST Robotics
  BEST Robotics
  BEST, Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology, is a national 6-week robotics competition in the United States held each fall, designed to help interest middle school and high school students in possible engineering careers...
  
  
• RobotCub
  RobotCub Consortium
  RobotCub was a 5 years long project funded by the European Commission through Unit E5 "Cognition" of the IST. The project started in 2004 and terminated in January 2010...
  
  , a humanoid robot project with the aim of studying cognition
  Cognition
  In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
  
  through robotics.