Have you ever heard of MiroSot and RoboSot, or FIRA No Then you will soon have a chance to hear these words to your heart’s content. They will become well-established buzzwords for a long time.
MiroSot refers to the Micro Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament, and RoboSot means the Robot Soccer Tournament. FIRA refers to the Federation of International Robot-soccer Association. Robot soccer was initiated by scientists to study the field of artificial intelligence by developing soccer robots that can play soccer autonomously.
Since 1996, when the first MiroSot was held in Daejeon, Korea, robot soccer developed to a remarkable extent, and so has robotics engineering. This year’s soccer tournament will be the 14th event. Now, it is not difficult to see humanoid robots kick a soccer ball with actual legs on a robot soccer field. It is pretty fun to watch a robot soccer game, a game which will also provide a valuable chance for scientists to develop robotics technology.
Robotics Congress, Robot World Cup
The Incheon Metropolitan Government will host the FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 and the FIRA RoboWorld Cup 2009 jointly in cooperation with FIRA. FIRA's headquarters is located within the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon. The FIRA RoboWorld events will be held in Incheon from Aug. 16 (Sunday) to 20 (Thursday).
The events will be organized jointly by the Incheon IT Promotion Agency (IITPA) and the Korea Robot Soccer Association (KRSA) under the joint sponsorship of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), the International Neural Network Society (INNS), the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Korea Tourism Organization, Incheon Tourism Organization, and Korea Association of Robotics. More details are available on the organizers’ official website www.fira2009.org. Information on preliminary elimination games for the 14th FIRA RoboWorld Cup is available at www.krsa.org.
Background and Goals
The Incheon Metropolitan Government plans to host these two robot events to arouse people’s attention to, and create a boom for, mechatronics and IT. These, along with the robot industry, are two future strategic industries of the city and of the country. It also hopes to contribute to the nationwide efforts to develop the country’s industrial structure by fusing conventional manufacturing industries with high technologies.
The robot events for this year were organized as an increasing number of people need various kinds of robots for their everyday lives. These include humanoid robots, domestic or service robots, entertainment robots, and human-friendly welfare robots. This will also give the country the opportunity to promote exchanges with foreign nations by transcending language and cultural differences across borders.
Through the events, Incheon also wishes to introduce itself to the world as the hub of state-of-the-art industries and as a site for Robot Land. It hopes to arouse visitors’ interest in science and robots, and to help train young talents in the intelligent robots and expand international exchange in the civilian sector.
Organizers hope the events will give children and young people opportunities to have hands-on experience in science during the IT festivals, help them have a better understanding of engineering, and inspire them to make their own achievements in science. They also hope that the events will serve as a new type of forum for international exchanges that will renew visitor interest in science and robots.
FIRA RoboWorld Congress
The FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 will be held in six different sessions at the Ramada Songdo Hotel in Incheon for three days from Aug. 16 (Sunday) to 18 (Tuesday). This year’s congress is expected to provide the participants with opportunities to review the outcomes of latest studies on all robotics-related disciplines. Dr. Kim Hong-hwan of KAIST will take charge of the congress as its honorary chair in cooperation with Dr. Shuzhi Sam Ge of the National University of Singapore (NUS), general chair of the congress.
Many robotics experts and enterprises will attend the six sessions during the congress. This includes:
1. International Conference on Computational Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CIRAS) – General Chair: Dr. Prahlad Vadakkepat of the NUS
2. International Symposium on Autonomous Minirobots for Research and Entertainment (AMiRE) – General Chair: Dr. Ulrich Ruckert of the University of Paderborne, Germany
3. International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) – General Chair: Dr. Ryohei Nakatsu of the NUS
4. International Conference on Advanced Humanoid Robotics Research (ICAHRR) – General Chair: Dr. Jacky Baltes of the University of Manitoba, Canada
5. International Conference on Entertainment Robotics (ICER) – General Chair: Dr. Nobert Jesse of the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany
6. International Robotics Education Forum (IREF) – General Chair: Dr. Igor Verner of the Israel Institute of Technology (IIT)
FIRA RoboWorld Cup
The FIRA RoboWorld Cup 2009 will be held at the Robot Science Future Pavilion and the venue for the Global Fair & Festival 2009 Incheon Korea for three days from Aug. 18 (Tuesday) to 20 (Thursday). Robot operators will introduce a variety of state-of-the-art robotics technologies during robot soccer games using autonomous and semi-autonomous robots based on multi-agent systems.
The Robot World Cup is expected to serve as a forum in which robotics scientists and engineers make presentations on the outcome of their individual research by displaying their robotics skills during soccer games. It will also serve as a venue for international exchange through which participants can demonstrate their sports spirit with the purely scientific gadgets they have made.
The robot soccer tournament, which will be supervised by Organizing Committee Honorary Chairman Lee Chang-koo, vice mayor of Incheon, and Organizing Committee Chair Eugene Jun, president of IITPA, will be held in several different divisions:
1. MiroSot – Chair: Dr. Norbert Jesse of the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany
2. RoboSot – Chair: Dr. Ching-Chang Wong of Tamkang University, Taiwan
3. SimuroSot – Chair: Dr. Yanduo Zhang of the Wuhan Institute of Technology, China
4. AMiRESot – Chair: Dr. Joaquin Sittee of the Queensland University of Technology, Australia
5. HuroCup – Chair: Dr. Jacky Baltes of the University of Manitoba, Canada
Of course, the FIRA RoboWorld Cup 2009 will showcase soccer games played by a variety of robots made by participating scientists and engineers from around the world. HuroCup will feature eight kinds of events – marathon, sprint, weight lifting, basketball, lift and carry, obstacle run, penalty kicks, and soccer. Unlike other events that accept all kinds of robots, including robots on wheels, only humanoid robots that are capable of walking with two legs can participate in HuroCup events. Details on rules of the games are available on www.fira.net or www.fira2009.org.
Major Events
Schedules for major events follow:
1. Opening ceremony for the FIRA RoboWorld Congress – at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 16 at the Ramada Songdo Hotel in Incheon
2. Opening ceremony for the FIRA RoboWorld Cup – at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 18 at the Robot Science Future Pavilion and the venue for the "Global Fair & Festival 2009 Incheon Korea," which opened on Aug. 7
3. Closing ceremony for the FIRA RoboWorld Cup – at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20 at the Robot Science Future Pavilion and the venue for the "Global Fair & Festival 2009 Incheon Korea"
Desired Effects
The Incheon Metropolitan Government expects to enhance the city’s international status as a robot city through the International Robot Congress and Robot World Cup. The city government, a local administration, is hosting these two internationally-recognized events, which bring robot experts together from around the world, in close cooperation with the central government, industry, and academia. As a result, this will lead to Incheon winning world-wide recognition as a global hub of intelligent robots.
These two robot events, and the Robot World Cup in particular, will provide visitors to the Global Fair & Festival 2009 Incheon Korea with rare and precious opportunities to witness the technological development of robotics through watching robot soccer and other events. The events will also bring educational effects through a variety of demonstrations and performances by intelligent robots.
