For IZI Robotics, a Korean robotics company that provides 90% of the world's soccer-playing robots, the 12th FIRA RoboWorld Cup USA 2007 is reckoned to be a good opportunity to acquaint world buyers and visitors with its creative technology and products.
According to Wayne T. Cho, president of IZI Robotics, the RoboWorld Cup, which is to be held on June 14-17, holds a very significant meaning as it can introduce robot soccer, a core Korean technology, to the United States.
New opportunities overseas
"Technologically," Cho explained, "Japan is still ahead of Korea as it has a long history of robot development.
However, Korean robots are intelligent robots that can be utilized for everyday use with the converged networking and advanced IT technology in which Korea takes pride."
Noting that robots are in a word evolved digital terminals, Cho forecasted that the robot market will grow to surpass the size of the automobile market by 2020. "Existing digital terminals such as PCs, MP3 players, and cellular phones don't have any mobility function, whereas robots are focused on mobility.
Besides, the digital market can be seen as the robots market where established terminals are evolving to become robots," Cho pointed out.
Against such background, the expert turned president believes the future of robotics is bright in the field of education, too. "We expect roughly 20~30% of our sales goal of 10 billion won [US$10.8 million] for this year will be attained from the export of educational robots," said the president, adding that the company has signed a sales contract with a German firm in February this year for the export of 30,000 educational robots.
"The creation of new markets for our robots is somewhat difficult," Cho acknowledged. "Even so," he said, "I am optimistic that the future will be bright as Korea's standing among the high-tech countries, such as Japan, the US and some other European countries that produce soccer robots, ranks high and we are proud to have contributed to this."
In the meantime, IZI Robotics is en route to be listed on the KOSDAQ market through a merger with an auto parts supplier next month. Through the listing, Cho anticipates IZI Robotics would be placed on a favorable position to secure stable funds for the production, circulation, and marketing of intelligent robots, thereby boosting the company's value.
For a robotics company that has taken part in the US RoboBusiness earlier this year in Boston, IZI Robotics has high hopes of paving a new market in the US and winning substantial business contracts to attain its sales target of US$10.8 million.
Intelligent robots
IZI Robotics supplies 90% of the soccer robot demand across Asia, Europe, Central and South America, and Australia.
The VICTO, IZI Robotics' soccer robot, uses icons on the screen instead of C++ programming. This allows even elementary school children to employ some strategies or tactics based on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and play an actual game with robots.
Another soccer robot, the YSR-A, is the one that has been developed for university student tournaments, and this item has been used both domestically and abroad in over 20 countries. Its superiority has been also already recognized during the FIRA International World Cup.
IZI Robotics' ER-6, an educational robot for elementary, middle and high school students, is receiving a considerable number of orders from Europe, according to Cho.
ER-6 has features such as a variety of input/output modules and software, easy assembly, practical hardware tested by the IZI Lab program, and an easily understood GUI programming option for robot control. The robot can perform such basic functions as tracing lines, playing soccer, participating in a sumo game and music composition. It is operated with a remote control.
In the latter half of the year, IZI Robotics is scheduled to launch the networked emotional robot Netoy in collaboration with KT. Netoy is said to be capable of making emotional expressions with its arms and LED readouts, providing information about weather and news and entertainment functions of streaming mp3s, private secretary, voice messenger, alarm clock, and other miscellaneous functions such as those of a clock and a nightlight.
About Robot-Soccer
Robot soccer, a high-tech scientific sport, was developed as a multi purpose testing ground for learning and applying high tech in the field of image analysis, artificial intelligence, sensors, communication, electronic precision control, dive motors, and software and hardware. Since then, the sport has enjoyed a steady growth as more and more young scientists participate.
There are three robot soccer events: MiroSot, NaroSot and RoboSot. Presently MiroSot, which constitutes a main part of the sport, is played in a small 150cm x 130cm field with a team of three micro robots measuring less than 7.5cm in length, width or height. There are two teams playing the soccer in a similar manner as the real field sport.
Points are earned for placing a golf ball into the other team's goal. The game is played not by humans operating remote controls but by computers making intelligent decisions.
The first international robot soccer world cup, which can be referred to as the formal event for robot soccer, was held at KAIST in November of 1996, and the second was played in June of 1997 at the same venue.
Only after three years since the birth of robot soccer on June 5th 1997, the Federation of International Robot-soccer Association (FIRA), an international robot soccer federation, was founded with the participation of 34 countries. After the official inauguration of FIRA, all international matches were called the FIRA Robot World Cup. The intelligence sport was held in France in 1998 and in Brazil in 1999. In both years, the Korean team won the championship and received the media spotlight.
The enthusiasm for the FIRA international world cup competition grows day by day. Australia hosted the 2000 championship while China hosted one in August of 2001, and Korea in 2002 along with the FIFA World Cup. Robot soccer is reputed to have made conspicuous footprints in the world of scientific sporting.
