"Having humanoid robots play soccer is extremely difficult, it is challenging," Asada, a professor specialising in emergent robotics at Osaka University said. Five research teams from Japan, three from Sweden and one each from Australia, Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore will bring two-legged robots to Fukuoka to demonstrate various "soccer" skills. One serious aim of the RoboCup, which began in Nagoya in central Japan five years ago and was held last year in Seattle, is to develop robots that can safely operate along side humans, Hiroaki Kitano, president of the RoboCup Federation, said. "They can't be allowed to cause injuries, even when there is a lot of contact," said Kitano, who is a project director for the Japanese government-funded Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project. So robot footballers will be incapable of committing the cynical fouls seen during some of the World Cup games, but their disciplined approach might tempt the humans into such errors. Asked how he thought the robots might
one day score a winning goal against the World Cup champions, Kitano
said: "Maybe from a penalty kick after being tackled from behind by
an impatient human defender." |