So soccer is a gentlemen sport for roughs..... No more!
The RoboCup Federation --- The Robot World Cup Initiative
RoboCup, The Robot World Cup Initiative, was launched to promote state-of-the-art in robotics and AI research, as well as providing a platform for integrated project oriented education. It has encouraged international joint projects involving over 20 countries and nearly 1,000 researchers.
While RoboCup Federation (established in Bern, Switzerland, as a non-profit organization, with operational headquarter in Tokyo, Japan) itself does not have a research group of its own, each of the participant laboratories and corporations advance toward the common goal. The main function of the RoboCup Federation is to organize annual conferences and competitions, and to foster technical exchange among researchers.
One of the effective ways to promote engineering research, apart from specific application developments, is to set a significant long term goal. When significant social impact is achieved by accomplishing such a goal, the goal is referred to as a grand challenge project.
Building a robot to play soccer itself does not generate significant social and economic impact, but the accomplishment will certainly considered a major achievement in the field.
We call this kind of project a landmark project. RoboCup is a landmark project.
Our ultimate goal is:
By the mid-21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a game of soccer, complying with the official rules of the FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup. **
This goal may sound overly ambitious given the state-of-the-art technology today.
Nevertheless, we believe it is important that such a long term goal is to be claimed and identified and pursued. It took only 50 years from the Wright Brother's first aircraft flight to Apollo mission to send man to the moon and safely return them to earth. Also, it took only 50 years, from the invention of the digital computer to the Deep Blue, which beat a human champion at chess. We recognize, however, that building humanoid soccer players requires an equally long period and extensive efforts of a broad range of researchers, and the goal will not be met in the near future.
Nevertheless, we believe the goal should be pursued, and we have identified this as the RoboCup challenge. In order to accomplish the mission, a broad range of technologies has to be developed and we believe they will be applied to various social and industrial applications.
**(my emphasis)
More:
robocup.org
robocup.org |
