European Robot Soccer Teams Play Second Fiddle to Korea
European Robot Soccer Teams Play Second Fiddle to Korea
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  • 승인 2007.06.12 09:40
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It looks like a scene from a 1980s science fiction film. Twenty-odd miniature metallic matchboxes chase each other around a desk that looks like a ping pong table in the desperate pursuit of an orange golf ball. On all sides, teams of frantic engineers gnaw on their fingernails and anxiously fiddle with computer keyboards. Believe it or not, this is soccer -- only not as most of the world knows it.

The founders of the original RoboCup, the competition that spawned Robot soccer, made an amazing claim back in 1993. They proudly boasted: "By the middle of the 21st Century, a team of robots will be able to beat the winners of the most recent World Cup."

It is hard to imagine the likes of Ronaldinho, Park Ji-Sung and David Beckham taking on these spinning tin cubes, but makers of the robots say that they are making quick progress.

Though most competitive teams are made up of tiny box-like robots, there are now even humanoid robots that stand on two legs. That said, though, these mechanized players can currently do little more than take penalties or dribble very slowly around obstacles.

While European soccer clubs might dominate human soccer, Koreans hold all the cards in the robot version of the game. Teams from around the world have been taking it in turns to try to overthrow Korea, who dominate international competitions. But with limited funding and sponsorship for European teams, there is a lot of ground to make up.

Victor Pakhomov is the lead member of the European side, The Moscow Pioneers. His side hails from Russia's leading robotics University department -- the mechanical engineering faculty of Moscow's MGU Institute. He explains that lack of money and opportunities for teams in Europe puts them at a disadvantage, especially when they go in for competitions like the 2006 World Cup in Dortmund.

"We funded our trip to Germany largely with our own money," said Pakhomov. "The robots are expensive pieces of machinery which we have invested heavily in." Another factor that European sides have to deal with is the lack of domestic competition in their own countries. The Moscow Pioneers are Russia's only competitive side.

"It's a pity. We went to Dortmund last year without having played a single competitive match before. In Russia we simply did not have anyone to play against. We might have developed one of the most technically advanced robot soccer teams in the world, but there is nobody else doing what we are in our country," said Pakhomov.

Experts say a lack of individuality and flair tends to be where the robot players often fall down, though their team spirit is second to no human side.

While the humanoid robots are capable of independent decision-making, the other models used in the international competitions use the collective mind of a single computer.

The Moscow Pioneers' Pakhomov put it like this: "So far only the twolegged robots think for themselves. Our miniature players have, if you will, just one eye and one brain for the whole team. The small cameras on the pitch and players all send on information to a central computer. That computer takes into account all the variables and gives instructions to the individual players."

So are the likes of The Moscow Pioneers ready to take on the real-life soccer champions of this World Are we to expect to see robot teams take on clubs like Chelsea or Real Madrid any time soon

"Unfortunately not," Said Pakhomov. "Our tiny robots bear very little resemblance to real life soccer players. They move on wheels, they don't use their feet. Instead they nudge the ball around with their bodies. The whole game is played out on a pitch sized 220 centimeters by 180."

The Moscow Pioneers' Pakhomov said building an effective robot team is much more complex than it looks to the untrained eye. "There are between four and eleven players on a team. Every mechanical player needs to be able to see the ball, the goal, its team-mates, the opposition players -- and on top of this they need to be able to control and kick the ball. Every complex little player needs to be able to assess any given situation," He says.

And Pakhomov adds that the difficulty of building a Robot Soccer team cannot be underestimated. "The size of this task is phenomenal. It is straight out of the world of science fiction. You might say that it is a more difficult and more complex task than building a computer that is capable of beating the World Chess Champion."

Dr. Ken Young is the brains behind the operation at British side Evolution, who hail from Warwick University in the UK. When asked what factors make Korean teams more successful, Dr. Young held nothing back. It seems Warwick's Evolution team did not find the rules of robot soccer particularly fair.

Dr. Young said: "At the moment it appears to me that the Koreans do their research and only when they have a solution do they change the rules. At this point they have no competition because everyone else's research has delivered something different."

Although Evolution are not focusing on international competitions at the moment, Dr. Young says the current rules could well de-motivate potential participants. "I can see that doing it the way they organize regulations doesn't inspire other countries to participate.

Formula 1 motor racing at least sets their rules six months in advance, for example. I have known robot soccer regulations come out less than two weeks in advance of a tournament," He explained.

A lot of teams in Europe say they see robot soccer as a character-building challenge, rather than a race for trophies.

The game, for many, is not about the robots but about the people who build them and what their involvement does to develop them as engineers and people. Dr. Young said: "At the moment robot soccer is the best challenge around for these engineers."

But what about the ultimate question - will robots ever really be able to defeat people in the biggest sport in the World Can these miniature golf carts actually ever aspire to become World-beaters Park Kwangmin is a Korean soccer journalist who writes for a variety of Korean newspapers and websites. He greets the idea of robots and humans engaged in sporting competition with a surprising optimism.

He said: "It would bring in a whole new dimension to soccer, and it could even bring in a whole new set of fans. Robots in sport -- that is definitely something to get excited about."

However, Evolution's Dr. Young is philosophical on the matter. "Do we ever want to beat the best humans What would we do next Sometimes perhaps it is better to travel than to arrive."

And perhaps he is right. If something as artistic and creative as soccer is ever perfected by robots to the level where Beckham and company would have to hang up their boots, it might be one of mankind's most impressive technological breakthroughs, but where would that leave the World's most popular sport Will future generations' children dream not of playing soccer like Ronaldinho but of designing a robot that can play better than him


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