RoboCup is an annual international robotics competition founded[1] in 1996 by a group of university professors (including Hiroaki Kitano, Manuela M. Veloso, Itsuki Noda and Minoru Asada). The aim of the competition is to promote robotics and AI research by offering a publicly appealing – but formidable – challenge.

A robot attempts to kick the ball at RoboCup 2013.

The name RoboCup is a contraction of the competition's full name, "Robot World Cup Initiative" (based on the FIFA World Cup), but there are many other areas of competition such as "RoboCupRescue", "RoboCup@Home" and "RoboCupJunior". Claude Sammut is the current president of RoboCup, and has been since 2019.

The official goal of the project is:

"By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup."[2]

RoboCup leagues

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Team rUNSWift competing in the Standard Platform League at RoboCup 2010 in Singapore
 
NimbRo-OP2X[3] robot in Humanoid AdultSize game át RoboCup 2018 in Montreal.
 
RoboCup 2019 Humanoid AdultSize winner NimbRo

The contest currently has six major domains of competition, each with a number of leagues and sub-leagues. These include:

Each team is fully autonomous in all RoboCup leagues. Once the game starts, the only input from any human is from the referee.[7]

RoboCup editions

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Number Year Host City Host Country Number of teams Number of countries Number of participants
1 RoboCup 1997 Nagoya   Japan 38 11
2 RoboCup 1998 Paris   France 63 19
3 RoboCup 1999 Stockholm   Sweden 85 23
4 RoboCup 2000 Melbourne   Australia 110 19
5 RoboCup 2001 Seattle   United States 141 22
6 RoboCup 2002 Fukuoka   Japan 197 29
7 RoboCup 2003 Padua   Italy 238 35
8 RoboCup 2004 Lisbon   Portugal 345 37
9 RoboCup 2005 Osaka   Japan 387 36
10 RoboCup 2006 Bremen   Germany 440 35
11 RoboCup 2007 Atlanta   United States 321 39 1,966
12 RoboCup 2008 Suzhou   People's Republic of China 373 35
13 RoboCup 2009 Graz   Austria 407 43 2,472
14 RoboCup 2010 Singapore   Singapore 500 40 3,000
15 RoboCup 2011 Istanbul   Turkey 451 40 2,691
16 RoboCup 2012 Mexico City   Mexico 381 42 2,356
17 RoboCup 2013 Eindhoven   Netherlands 410 45 3,033
18 RoboCup 2014 João Pessoa   Brazil 358 45 2,900
19 RoboCup 2015 Hefei   People's Republic of China 346 43 2,032
20 RoboCup 2016 Leipzig   Germany[8] 404 45 3,500
21 RoboCup 2017 Nagoya   Japan[9] 500 50 2,520
22 RoboCup 2018 Montreal   Canada 360 40 2,345
23 RoboCup 2019 Sydney   Australia 335 40 2,200
24 RoboCup 2021 Virtual 317 43 2,129
25 RoboCup 2022 Bangkok   Thailand
26 RoboCup 2023 Bordeaux   France
27 RoboCup 2024 Eindhoven   Netherlands
28 RoboCup 2025 Salvador Brazil

The formal RoboCup competition was preceded by the (often unacknowledged) first International Micro Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (MIROSOT) held by KAIST in Taejon, Korea, in November 1996. This was won by an American team from Newton Labs, and the competition was shown on CNN.[10]

RoboCup was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19. The planned host location of Bordeaux will host in 2023.

RoboCup Asia-Pacific editions

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Year Host City Host Country Number of teams Number of countries Number of participants Website
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2017 Bangkok   Thailand 130+ [11] 25 1000+ [1]
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2018 Kish Island   Iran [2]
Dubai   United Arab Emirates [3]
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2019 Moscow   Russia [4]
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2020 Virtual [5]
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2021 Aichi Prefecture / Virtual   Japan [6]

European RoboCupJunior Championship

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Year Host City Host Country Number of teams Number of countries Number of participants Website
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2018 Pescara   Italy [7]
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2019 Hanover   Germany
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2020 Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2021 Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2022 Guimarães   Portugal [8]

RoboCup local events

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Warwick Mobile Robotics (from the University of Warwick) robot navigates red step fields, in the RoboCupRescue arena at the 2009 RoboCup German Open
Brainstormers Tribots (from Universität Osnabrück) play RFC Stuttgart (from Universität Stuttgart) in the RoboCupSoccer Middle-Size League at the 2009 RoboCup German Open

2024

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•German open in Kassel

2023

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•German open

2021

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  • RoboCup Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan
  • RoboCup Portugal Open, virtual
  • RoboCup Russia Open, Tomsk, Russia
  • RoboCup Brazil Open, virtual

2020

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  • RoboCup Japan Open 2020, virtual
  • RoboCup China Open 2020, virtual
  • RoboCup Brazil Open 2020, virtual

Events were cancelled due to COVID-19[12]

2019

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2018

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2017

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  • RoboCup Portugal Open 2017, Coimbra, Portugal
  • RoboCup Iran Open 2017, Tehran, Iran
  • RoboCup German Open 2017, Magdeburg, Germany
  • RoboCup Russia Open 2017, Tomsk, Russia
  • RoboCup US Open 2017, Miami, United States
  • RoboCup China Open 2017, Shaoxing, China

2016

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2015

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2014

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2013

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2012

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2011

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2010

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "RoboCup: The Robot World Cup Initiative". RoboCup. 1995. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.49.7511. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. ^ "RoboCup: Objective". RoboCup. 1998. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  3. ^ Ficht, Grzegorz; Farazi, Hafez; Brandenburger, Andre; Rodriguez, Diego; Pavlichenko, Dmytro; Allgeuer, Philipp; Hosseini, Mojtaba; Behnke, Sven (2018). "NimbRo-OP2X: Adult-Sized Open-Source 3D Printed Humanoid Robot". 2018 IEEE-RAS 18th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids). Beijing, China: IEEE. pp. 1–9. arXiv:1810.08395. Bibcode:2018arXiv181008395F. doi:10.1109/HUMANOIDS.2018.8625038. ISBN 978-1-5386-7283-9. S2CID 53044123.
  4. ^ "RoboCup@Home – Where the best domestic service robots test themselves". RoboCup@Home. Robocup Federation, Inc. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  5. ^ "Welcome to RoboCup@Work!". RoboCup@Work. Robocup Federation, Inc. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  6. ^ "RoboCupJunior – Creating a learning environment for today, fostering technological advancement for tomorrow". junior.robocup.org. Retrieved 2018-04-16.
  7. ^ "A New Goal for Open Source". Red Hat Blog. Red Hat, Inc. 20 May 2008. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  8. ^ "RoboCup WM 2016 kommt nach Leipzig". 22 July 2014.
  9. ^ "RoboCup2017 Nagoya Japan(ロボカップ2017)". Archived from the original on 2017-04-04. Retrieved 2017-04-03.
  10. ^ "Robot Soccer at Newton Research Labs". www.newtonlabs.com. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  11. ^ "ICCA member press release: Thailand Robotics Week 2017 & RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2017". Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  12. ^ "Statement from RoboCup Federation and Bordeaux RoboCup LOC: Corona Virus (COVID-19)". www.robocup.org. Retrieved 2020-07-01.
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  Media related to RoboCup at Wikimedia Commons

  • Official website
  • RoboCup@Home league, aims to develop service and assistive robot technology with high relevance for future personal domestic applications.