Overview

Associated Research Topics

The Federation of International Sports Association (FIRA) - founded by Prof. Jong-Hwan Kim, KAIST, Korea in 1996 - is the oldest robot soccer competition in the world. From humble beginnings, FIRA has grown to a major robotics competition with the goal using sports as benchmark problems for state of the art research in robotics and other related areas. FIRA also includes the FIRA Air competition for autonomous flying robots, FIRA Challenge for robotics research with great societal benefits such as urban search and rescue robots, and FIRA Youth for the next generation of researchers. In 2018, FIRA RoboWorld Cup was held in Tai Chung, Taiwan and attracted more than 1,200 participants.

With the ever increase in the number of robots in an industrial environment, scientists/technologists were often faced with issues of cooperation and coordination among different robots and their self-governance in a workspace. This has led to the developments in multi-robot cooperative autonomous systems. The proponents of multi-robot autonomous systems needed a model to test the theories being proposed to test its efficacy and efficiency. It is not a surprise that they started focussing on robot soccer. Robot soccer makes heavy demands in all the key areas of robot technology, mechanics, sensors and intelligence. And it does so in a competitive setting that people around the world can understand and enjoy.
The Micro-Robot Wold Cup Soccer Tournament (MiroSot) thus was given birth, and a new interdisciplinary research area emerged, where scientists and technologists from diverse fields like, robotics, intelligent control, communication, computer technology, sensor technology, image processing, mechatronics, artificial life, etc., work together to make the multi-robot systems a reality. The robots used in MiroSot are small in size (7.5cm x 7.5cm x 7.5cm), fully/semi-autonomous and without any human operators.
MiroSot involves multiple robots that need to collaborate in an adversarial environment to achieve specific objectives.
In multi-robot systems, other robots in addition to the uncertainty that may be inherent in the domain can determine the environment's dynamics.
They have dynamic environments as other robots intentionally affect the environment in unpredictable ways. The key aspect being the need for robots not only to control themselves but also to track and control the ball which is a passive part of the environment. The interesting theoretical issue behind MiroSot experiments is the use of soccer as a prototype example of a complex, adaptive system. MiroSot is a new interdisciplinary research area, where scientists and technologists from diverse fields like robotics, intelligent control, communication, computer technology, sensor technology, image processing, mechatronics, artificial life, etc., can work together to make the multi-robot systems a reality.