Tokyo, June 12, 2002
Humanoid Robots Play Soccer for the first time ever

RoboCup 2002, A Major International Event Featuring Autonomous Soccer-Playing Robots and Rescue Robots and Junior edutainment project, in Fukuoka, Japan, June 19-25.

RoboCup-2002, the sixth international sporting and scientific event featuring autonomous soccer- playing and rescue robots of all shapes and sizes will take place in Fukuoka, Japan, on June 19 - 25.

A key goal of RoboCup, an international research and academic initiative, is to create a team of fully autonomous soccer-playing robots that will win against the human world champion soccer team by the year 2050.

The concept of robots playing soccer was first introduced in 1993, and the first official RoboCup competitions were held in 1997 in Nagoya, Japan, with 12 international teams participating. Other competitions have taken place in Paris (France), Stockholm (Sweden), Melbourne (Australia), and Seattle (USA) where 138 teams from 22 countries took part in the largest RoboCup competition to date. RoboCup 2002 promises to be even larger. This year 193 teams from 30 countries/regions, more than 1000 researchers are expected to participate.

RoboCup-2002 will feature teams of robots ranging in size from some so small they'll compete on a ping-pong table-sized field to others the size of adult humans. Major feature of RoboCup-2002 is Humanoid League being held for the first in history. 12 teams from 6 different countries will bring in their robots from 40cm up to 180cm and challenge to play basics of soccer such as penalty kick. Honda's humanoid "ASIMO" will also give us demonstrations.
The robots will also meet in Fukuoka Dome in four different competitions, including the Simulation League, Small-size Robot League, Middle-size Robot League and the Sony Legged Robot League.

In addition to the Soccer competition, two other areas are present: RoboCupRescue and RoboCupJunior.

RoboCup Rescue was organized to promote research and development in large-scale disasters simulation and disaster relief robots. There are two rescue leagues: the Simulation League to compete for best disaster relief strategy, and the Robot League to compete for efficiency and accuracy in discovering victims in mock-up of a collapsed fields.

The RoboCup Junior curriculum endeavors to spark the interest and curiosity of children through activities in robot fabrication and programming in groups. This year, 60 teams from 12 countries, including Busan (Korea) and Australia, selected through regional qualifying rounds will gather in Fukuoka to challenges their accumulated skills in Soccer and Dance competitions.

Not only the competitions but also " ROBOTOREX 2002" robot exhibition is to be held this year first in the history of the events. The purpose of the exhibition is to support the next generation of robots and foster "robot technologies" (RT) by providing an opportunity to display research and development results, discover a venues for commercialization, and develop new markets. The exhibition also features extensive discussions and interactions among participants. Approximately 50 companies and organizations are planning to exhibit.

RoboCup aims to be a landmark project, like the Apollo project in 60s, which spread the fruits of research and development activities to the society and industries. In this approach, RoboCup values its association with the corporate partners. For the year 2002, SGI, Zenrin and Sony support RoboCup activities as RoboCup Partners. The relationship between RoboCup and its Partners is beyond the conventional sponsorship, collaboration is emphasized in the realm of scientific and engineering researches and beyond. In RoboCup 2002, we also have Oracle to organize the RoboCup Promotion Website, and Louis Vuitton, impressed by the challenging spirit of RoboCup, to present a traveling trophy for the Humanoid League winner.

In this year's tourney, round robin competitions take place June 19-21 (open to the public during 20th -23rd). A grand finale is on June 23, with finals, awards and ceremonies. 24th and 25th are the international symposium where the production of the scientific researches will be presented.
For complete information on RoboCup 2002, visit http://www.robocup.2002.org.