Having acquired skills of falling in synthetic love, making long-term cyber relationships, and playing pool with two hands, it’s time to take care of the artificial stamina! Recently, robots became active supporters of football and they began to play this most famous game in the world.
Dr. Subramanian Ramamoorthy, researcher from University of Edinburgh, leads a team that has trained robots to play football. Though it may appear otherwise, football is a very difficult game to model. Robots have to have a constant perception of a world that keeps changing, acting fluently in the same world as it is changing and doing it in the presence of other robots moving in this world. All of these challenges are going to be faced by domestic robots in our homes.
One of key things in these robots is sensing. Sensors let robots know what is going on around them. They are equipped with cameras to give much closer view and track changes, sonars to mesure distances and objects in the external world, and tap sensors to feel the floor and secure the body movement.
Artificial intelligence develops fast. Annual event of Robot Soccer World Cup will soon search for a virtual agents that report on events as they take place. This recruited virtual agent will comment RoboCup in real time, similarly as dynamic engaging intelligent reporter agent DEIRA reports virtual horse races in real-time.
