Can a team of soccer-playing robots beat the human World Cup champions by 2050?
That’s the ultimate goal of RoboCup, an international tournament where teams of soccer robots compete in various categories, from small wheeled machines to adult-size humanoids.
IEEE Spectrum’s Harry Goldstein traveled to Singapore to attend RoboCup 2010 and see how the man vs. machine future of soccer is playing out.
Special thanks to Aamir Ahmad and Prof. Pedro U. Lima from the Institute for Systems and Robotics, Instituto Superior Técnico, in Lisboa, Portugal; Prof. Mike Wong Hong Kee from Singapore Polytechnic; and the Advanced Robotics & Intelligent Control Centre at Singapore Polytechnic for additional footage.
Erico Guizzo is the Director of Digital Innovation at IEEE Spectrum, and cofounder of the IEEE Robots Guide, an award-winning interactive site about robotics. He oversees the operation, integration, and new feature development for all digital properties and platforms, including the Spectrum website, newsletters, CMS, editorial workflow systems, and analytics and AI tools. An IEEE Member, he is an electrical engineer by training and has a master’s degree in science writing from MIT.
