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Eindhoven University of Technology wins 2014 robot soccer World Cup
The World Cup may have finished a few weeks ago, but there was another one played in Brazil just last week. The annual RoboCup competition was held in João Pessoa, including the robot soccer World Cup.
RoboCup was founded in 1997. Previous tournaments have seen the release of an open-source hardware platform to encourage new competitors and a robot dancing Gangnam Style. The competition was set up with the goal of creating a robot soccer team that was capable of beating the FIFA World Cup champions by 2050.
According to RoboCup, its soccer strand has contributed to a number of robotics research standards since its inception. The games have five players per side and the robots must be fully autonomous. The only in-game human interference comes from the referee. Since being set up, RobCup has expanded to include other fields of competition.
In addition to small, middle-size, standard and humanoid soccer leagues, robots can now compete in categories for rescue (testing robots in simulated human rescue scenarios), home (testing the abilities of robots to assist in home scenarios) and work (testing the abilities of robots to assist in workplace scenarios). RoboCupJunior, meanwhile, provides young people with a means of pitting their robotics skills against each other.
This year's middle-size robot soccer World Cup was won by Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), whose team beat the University of Beijing 3-2. The TU/e robot soccer team was founded in 2005. Students, staff members and alumni work on projects all year round and at evenings and weekends. TU/e has competed against the University of Beijing in two previous robot soccer World Cup Final games, in 2011 and 2013, but lost both. TU/e says the Chinese robots are known for their speed and strength, while its own robots focus on technical combination play.
Talking to Gizmag, TU/e team captain Robin Soetens explained some of the technologies used in the team's soccer robots. The robots are powered by an internal, Wi-Fi-connected PC. They move about on three omni-directional wheels and use an industrial camera paired with a parabolic mirror to see in 360 degrees up to a distance of 6 meters (20 ft). Ball dribbling capability is provided using two actuated wheels on levers and the robots use large solenoids driven by capacitors to shoot.
"Defensively our robots guard the opponent with the ball, and block passes to its team-mates," says Soetens. "The goalkeeper has additional sensing equipment to detect shots in 3D. It uses two RGB-D cameras and a fish eye view camera with a custom-designed, field-programmable gate array (FPGA) board. Once high balls are detected it moves its rack to prevent them from entering the goal."
Detailed design plans of the TU/e robot are available under an open hardware license. The full list of RoboCup 2014 winners is available on the competition website.
The video below shows the highlights of the middle-size robot soccer World Cup Final. The commentary is in Dutch, but you'll get the idea.
Source: TU/e
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/robocup-robot-soccer-world-cup/33154/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.