With hundreds of participants from 47 countries, the five general categories of RoboCup 2015 have completed their matches, and the robotic world has crowned its new world champions of soccer. Organized since 1997, RoboCup uses common platforms that each team must program to extract the greatest possible performance from their players and gain advantages in speed and precision.
Robots on the Pitch
In previous occasions we have seen them fight, and we certainly hope for the titanic super-combat between Kuratas and MegaBot. However, robots also play soccer. In fact, they have been doing so for almost twenty years, and they even have their own World Cup. The 2015 edition of RoboCup moved the competition to Hefei, capital of Anhui province in China. 300 teams from 47 different countries measured their programming and strategy skills in five general categories, which vary according to the type and size of the robots involved.
The Finals That Mattered
In the medium-size humanoid category, the final was played between the local team Water from Beijing University of Technology and Information Science and Tech United Eindhoven from Eindhoven University of Technology. In the video above you can see a summary of the match (with German audio, I'm afraid), where Water claimed victory with a score of 4-1. Medium-size robots stand out for their mid-range shots and very flashy short movements. In the adult-size humanoid competition, the American team THORwln beat the Iranian team Baset 5-4. The other notable result comes from the Standard Platform league, which uses Aldebaran Robotics robots as its base. In that league, the Australian team from the University of New South Wales defeated B-Human from Germany 3-1.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7iahg4gvBBYNo one doubts that robots are still decades away from occupying a real soccer field and performing like professionals do, but on a much smaller scale, the matches are gaining enthusiasm and speed. According to the Australian team, this last element was the key to defeating their rivals. If optimizations in the code allow robots to reach the ball first, they will have more chances to send it to the back of the net. The 2016 edition will move to Leipzig. We will be waiting.
