Robot Soccer

Robot Soccer
Engineers have built and programmed robots to play soccer for over two decades. Several organizations, such as the RoboCup Federation and FIRA, host tournaments where teams from around the world compete with soccer playing robots. What are some reasons that robot soccer is so popular?
Two of the main reasons that robot soccer is so popular are:
- Entertainment – Soccer, or football, is one of the most popular sports in the world. Many people enjoy watching and playing the sport. Substituting the human players for intelligent, responsive machines adds a fresh spin on the game.
- Research & Development – Robot soccer is an activity that requires multiple robots working together to accomplish tasks (scoring goals and defending their goal), while reacting to another team of robots doing the same. Robot soccer is an incredibly creative and authentic setting for developing algorithms that allow robots to quickly track the trajectory of an object, take control and manipulate that object, and communicate their position and other information to their teammates. All of these algorithms can be reused by robots in other environments to accomplish similar tasks.