Technological Achievements
Since the premiere of the RoboCup Humanoid League in 2002 the pace of progress and the number of scientific and technological achievements through the participating teams have been remarkable. While in 2002 almost all robots struggled with basic locomotion capabilities like standing on one leg, walking and kicking, nowadays teams of robots in Kid and Teen Size perform fast and exciting soccer games autonomously with many goals. To properly assess these achievements it must be considered that the humanoid robots are fully autonomous and the only external sensors allowed are human like (i.e. no active range sensors and vision is limited to a human like field of view of 180 degrees). Also the foot area size is quite limited with respect to the height of the center of mass.
Scientific Achievements
Scientific achievements in the Humanoid League have been documented in a large number of publications in major journals and at major international conferences. Prominent examples are
- The special issue of Robotics and Autonomous Systems on Humanoid Soccer Robots: Volume 57, Number 8, July 2009
- The special issue of the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics: Volume 5, Number 3, September 2008
and the Workshops on Humanoid Soccer Robots (HSR) at the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots
- 9th HSR Workshop, Madrid, Spain, November 18, 2014
- 8th HSR Workshop, Atlanta, GA, October 15, 2013
- 7th HSR Workshop, Osaka, Japan, November 29, 2012
- 6th HSR Workshop, Bled, Slovenia, October 26, 2011
- 5th HSR Workshop, Nashville, TN, USA, December 7, 2010
- 4th HSR Workshop, Paris, France, December 7, 2009
- 3rd HSR Workshop, Daejeon, Korea, December 1, 2008
- 2nd HSR Workshop, Pittsburgh, USA, November 29, 2007
- 1st HSR Workshop, Genova, Italy, December 4, 2006.
Educational Achievements
The development of humanoid robots able to play soccer is a fundamental challenge problem for robotics and AI. Since the start of the humanoid league in 2002, there have been lots of improvements in humanoid soccer robots hardware and software. This is partially due to the introduction of standard and competitions for complex simulated robots (3D Simulation). In order to have a long term goal in the learning aspects of humanoid robotics, it has been started to organize International School on Humanoid Soccer Robots in different part of the world. The objective of the these schools are to give students deep insights into the currently leading approaches in the filed of humanoid soccer robots. By defining, International School on Humanoid Soccer Robots, humanoid league is planning to define a project to promote the RoboCup Community.
- 4th International Spring School on Humanoid Soccer Robots 2015, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, May 20- 22, 2015
- 3rd International Spring School on Humanoid Soccer Robots 2014, Tehran, Iran, April 12 – 16, 2014
- 2nd International Summer School on Humanoid Soccer Robots 2013, Bonn, Germany, July 22 – 26, 2013
- 1th International Winter School on Humanoid Soccer Robots 2012, Manitoba, Canada, February 20 – 24, 2012