Cooperative Robotics in Robocup Soccer is Not Just Playing a Game Andrea Bonarini

Abstract

Robocup is one of the largest scientific robotic initiatives, aimedat developing robotics and spreading it in society. It is organizedin different leagues, which organize competitions among robots,most of which are autonomous. Some leagues involve teams ofautonomous robots that have to cooperate to win a soccer gameagainst an opponent team. Given the aims of this book, in thischapter we will focus on these leagues, where cooperation amongrobots is crucial. We will consider issues such as cooperativesensing, cooperative behavior, and team strategy. We discuss someof the ways Robocup teams have faced these issues, and we willenvision the application of these techniques in industrial andservice robotics, nowadays and in a next future. We will alsoshow how Robocup can be considered a challenging and engagingenvironment, stimulating the development of techniques than canbe used to face also real-world applications.