RoboCup 2009

The RoboCup competition aims at advancing AI and robotics via a series of robotic competitions, involving soccer, rescue and other competitive scenarios, carried out in various leagues featuring different types of (often autonomous) robots. Poised between theoretical AI research, engineering, useful applications and providing a universal benchmark, in RoboCup 2009 one could witness again increased performance of the robots compared to last year. One of the hallmarks of the RoboCup project are the “moving goalposts”: rules and requirements are changed and made more difficult from year to year to keep the challenge advancing. Notwithstanding this, the last competition saw again considerable improvement in the various leagues. However, to put things in proper perspective, it is indeed instructive to compare the current RoboCup competition with a competition, say, five years ago. Not only has RoboCup enjoyed the addition of important new leagues in this time, but central leagues (such as the humanoid league which started 2002) have improved beyond recognition. For the first time ever, the RoboCup world championship went to Austria, into the university town of Graz. The competition involved 2,300 participants from 44 countries. In the following, we will report on selected highlights of this competition.