May 11, 2005
HundRoboterFußball
Wired reported today on the RoboCup US Open that just concluded. The RoboCup is an international series of matches that are comprised of a range of robot competitions, including several different flavors of robot soccer, one of which is robot dog soccer, featuring teams of Sony Aibo robots.
Eager to see some footage of this phenomenon, I found my way to the home page of the winning team, the Microsoft Hellhounds (based in Germany). They don't have anything from the US Open posted yet, but there is an archive of matches from previous competitions. I've only watched a few, but my favorite so far is the first half of the German Open Semi Final from earlier this year.
BTW, the RoboCup German Open site also has a video montage of the entire competition (with a snappy techno soundtrack).
Surreal! I love the first goal. I also like how the field is lit with just feet of the humans showing. I was also surprised how small the dogs were; I didn't have any perspective until the 'referee' showed up.
Posted by: Doug at May 12, 2005 10:17 AMYeah, I was suprised by the small size as well, but it was their coordination (via wireless) that impressed me the most. They seemed slightly more organized than a team of fourth-graders.
Posted by: ken at May 12, 2005 10:34 AMI don't get it -- are they controlled at all during the game, or are they just acting out based upon programming?
Posted by: Doug at May 16, 2005 09:12 AMThey are programmed. The robots cooperate by triangulating the position of the ball, the goals, and their relative positions to each other via wireless. The Hellhounds site (translated by Google) tells the story:
Posted by: ken at May 16, 2005 09:33 AMBen-Lag
Capitalism, Chinese-Style
Year of the Sleeping Dog
Learning from Each Other
Home at Last
We Are Family
Ladies Man
Feeling Blessed
Traveling in a Pack
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