FIRA robot soccer, a brainchild of Prof. Jong-Hwan Kim, KAIST, began in 1995, the first international championship was held at KAIST, Daejeon, Korea in 1996. The Federation of International Robot-soccer Association (FIRA) was established on June 5, 1997 during the micro-robot soccer tournament (MiroSot'97) held at KAIST in Daejeon, Korea. FIRA Robot World Cup is held every year on global-scale. FIRA Robot World Congress is held along with FIRA Cup, where all participating teams submit and present papers on their robots and schemes for sharing the expertise and technology for building the soccer robots.
Micro-Robot World Soccer Tournament (MiroSot) initiative gives a good arena for multi-agent research, dealing with research subjects such as cooperation protocol by distributed control, effective communication and fault tolerance, while having efficiency of cooperation, adaptation, robustness and being in real-time.
With the ever increase in number of robots in an industrial environment, scientists/technologists were often faced with issues on 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 opponents 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 focusing 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 World 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.
1995 |
|
International Organizing Committee: Micro-Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament, initiated by Jong-Hwan Kim, KAIST, Korea |
1996 |
August: |
International Summer Camp for Rule Meeting |
1997 |
June 1-5: |
The 2nd MiroSot'97 held at KAIST, Korea |
1998 |
June 29-July 3 |
1998 FIRA Cup France at the La cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris, France |
1999 |
August 4-8 |
1999 FIRA Cup Brazil at the Gymnasium of Colegio Notre Dame, Campinas, Brazil |
2000 |
September 18-24 |
2000 FIRA Cup Australia, Rockhampton, Australia |
2001 |
August 1-5 |
2001 FIRA Cup China at the Science and Technology Museum, Beijing, China |
2002 |
May 23-29 |
2002 FIRA Cup Korea, 6 FIFA World Cup Cities (The Preliminary Games: Busan, Daegu, Daejeon, Gwangju, and Suwon, The finals: SETEC, Seoul) |
2003 |
Sept. 28-Oct. 3 |
2003 FIRA Cup Austria, Vienna, Austria, Korea |
2004 |
Sept. 28-Oct. 3 |
2004 FIRA Cup BEXCO, Busan, Korea |
2005 |
Dec. 12-14 |
2005 FIRA Cup Singapore |
2006 |
June 30-July 3 |
2006 FIRA Cup Dortmund, Germany |
2007 |
June 14- 17 |
2007 Fira Cup San Francisco, USA |
Robot soccer can be portrayed as a competition of advanced robot technology within a confined space. It offers a challenging arena to the young generation and researchers working with autonomous mobile robotic systems. It is hoped that FIRA's flagship event, called the FIRA Robot World Cup (or the FIRA Cup in short), which started in 1996, together with many other FIRA events, will help generate interests in robotics in the young minds.
Through these events, FIRA hopes to help them better understand and appreciate, with interests, the scientific concepts and technological developments involved. FIRA believes that some of these interests will fuel scientific and engineering skills that ultimately develop into research outcomes to serve mankind in a variety of ways.
Ever since its establishment, FIRA has had venues for its annual FIRA Cup in Australia, Brazil, China, France and Korea. Making progress over successive years since 1996, FIRA Cup has now attained world recognition as a robot festival.
1. MiroSot '96
The very idea of Robot Soccer was originated in 1995 and in the month of September 1995 Professor Jong-Hwan Kim of KAIST, Korea, formally initiated an International Organizing Committee (IOC) for Micro-Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (MiroSot). A summer camp (pre-meeting) on MiroSot was held in KAIST during July 29 - August 4, 1996, in which 30 teams from 13 countries attended. The MiroSot game rules were given a clear shape in the same meeting. The first MiroSot'96 was held in KAIST, between November 9 and 12, 1996. Twenty three (23) teams from 10 countries participated in the same.
2. MiroSot '97
The second MiroSot was held at KAIST, during June 1-5, 1997 with 22 teams from 9 countries. Related research results on robot soccer are available from the workshop proceedings of MiroSot'96 and MiroSot'97 edited by Jong-Hwan Kim. The Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems published a special issue on MiroSot'97.
3. 1998 FIRA Cup France
FIRA hosted the FIRA Robot World Cup France'98 in Paris at the La cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris, between June 29 and July 3, 1998. Competitions were held in MiroSot, NaroSot (Nano Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament) and S-KheperaSot (Single-Khepera World Cup Soccer Tournament). The FIRA Robot World Cup France'98 witnessed the smallest robots ever to play the game of soccer between the SOTY and the BEST teams from Korea. It was the NaroSot category with robots sized 4 (cm) x 4 (cm) x 5.5 (cm). Teams from Denmark and USA competed for the S-KheperaSot. In the main competition of MiroSot there were 16 teams. Regional Championships were held to select 16 teams in MiroSot and 4 teams each in NaroSot and S-KheperaSot for the Robot World Cup France'98.
FIRA'98 saw very promising developments in vision technology. The MiroSot world champion Keys developed and demonstrated the superiority of their vision card that works at a speed of 60 frames in a second with a capability to recognize 255 colours. Their robots were very fast, moving at a speed of 2m/s. From 1996, the year the first MiroSot competitions were held, the vision technology and robot speeds have improved on a tremendous level. In 1996, most of the teams used vision cards working at a rate of 10 frames/second. The robot speeds were as low as 50 cm/s then.
The competitions saw a sea change in motor technology and in the area of cooperative robotics as well. The outcome of the games clearly indicated the role played by the powerful motors in winning a game. The game strategies as well found different levels of development among the participants. The interesting point noted was the teams with the same level of competence (by way of vision card and motor speeds) did show better team strategies during a game. On the other hand, when two teams with different levels of competence were competing, due to the inability of the weaker team to move as fast as that of the opponent, resulted in collisions among robots at a higher rate. As years go by, it is expected to narrow down these differences in robot competence.
4. 1999 FIRA Cup Brazil
The FIRA Robot World Cup Brazil'99 was held from August 4 to 8, at the gymnasium of Campinas's most traditional school, Colegio Notre Dame. Fifteen teams representing six countries from four continents, selected through regional robot soccer competitions, participated in two categories of competitions: NaroSot and MiroSot. A scientific workshop was held on the evening of August 6th for the exchange and discussion of the scientific issues behind robot soccer and the applications derived from it. An estimated 3,000 people, including professionals from all areas of engineering and computer science, university professors, and graduate, undergraduate, and high school students, attended FIRA'99.
5. FIRA Benchmark Competition '99
For the first time, FIRA held a benchmark competition along FIRA'99 and participated four teams. FIRA was aimed to:6. 2000 FIRA Cup Australia
The FIRA'2000 was held in August 2000, in conjunction with the 2000 Olympics games, in Rockhampton, Australia. Four FIRA regional championships were organized to seed the teams for the FIRA'2000 event.
7. 2001 FIRA Cup China
The FIRA Robot World Cup 2001 was held at the Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, China from August 1-5, 2001 along with the FIRA Robot World Congress. 65 teams took part in 8 categories.
8. 2002 FIRA Cup Korea
2002 FIRA Robot Soccer World Championship (2002 FIRA Cup) took place in FIFA World Cup cities from May 23 to 29, 2002 one week before the 2002 FIFA World CupTM. Along with the 2002 FIRA Cup, 2002 FIRA Robot World Congress and FIRA Intelligent Robot Exhibition also took place.
The 2002 FIRA Cup attracted an overwhelming participation, both locally and from overseas. A total of 207 teams from 25 countries, with over 600 professors, scientists, engineers and university students, participated in this grand event, making it the largest ever in its short history. The preliminary stages of MiroSot and SimuroSot were held at the 5 FIFA World Cup cities. The finals of MiroSot and SimuroSot, together with the other categories such as HuroSot, were held at SETEC, Seoul, from 26 May 2002 to 28 May 2002. HuroSot made its debut in this year's FIRA Cup, and was an interesting highlight of the event.
9. 2003 FIRA Cup Austria
2003 FIRA Robot Soccer World Cup was held in Vienna, Austria from 28 September to 3 October, 2003. There were 6 different competition categories: HuroSot, KheperaSot, MiroSot (Small, Middle and Large League), NaroSot, RoboSot and SimuroSot (Large and Middle League). 107 Teams from 22 countries participated in this Cup.
Parallel to the FIRA World Cup the FIRA World Congress was organized. On the congress the latest insights regarding mobile, cooperative, intelligent robots were introduced and discussed. Particular emphasis was given to the applications and development in the area of entertainment, education, service, personal robots.
10. 2004 FIRA Cup Korea
2004 FIRA Cup was held in Busan, Korea from October 27-31, 2004. There were 6 different competition categories: HuroSot, KheperaSot, MiroSot (Small, Middle and Large League), NaroSot, RoboSot and SimuroSot (Large and Middle League). 96 Teams from 21 countries participated in this Cup. As in the previous year parallel to the FIRA World Cup the FIRA World Congress was organized
11. 2005 FIRA Cup Singapore
2005 FIRA Cup was held in Orchard Hotel, Singapore from Decemberber 12-14, 2005. There were 8 different competition categories: HuroSot, KheperaSot, MiroSot, NaroSot, and SimuroSot. 83 Teams from 16 countries participated in this Cup.
12. 2006 FIRA Cup Germany
2006 FIRA Cup was held in Dortmund, Germany from 30th June to 3rd July.
There were 4 different competition categories: HuroSot, MiroSot, NaroSot, and SimuroSot. 47 Teams from 17 countries participated in this Cup.
13. 2007 FIRA Cup USA
FIRA RoboWorld Cup 2007 was held in San Francisco, USA along with the RoboGames from 14th June to 17th June 2007. There were new categories in Huro Cup to make FIRA RoboWorld Cup more exciting: HuroCup, Robo Marahtone, AndroSot, KheperaSot. So the competition categories were: HuroCup HuroSot, Robo Marahtone, AndroSot, KheperaSot, MiroSot (Large League and Middle League), NaroSot / - RoboSot, SimuroSot (Large League and Middle League).
In this year some rules were changed. The new rules can be download here.
14. 2008 FIRA Cup China
The 13th FIRA Roboworld Cup China 2008 will take place in Qingdao from 22-25 July, 2008. More information can be found here: http://www.firachina.net/.
15 2008 FIRA European Cup Linz
FIRA European Cup, EUROBY2008, will be held from June 19 to 22, 2008 in Linz. Further information can be found in the official website for EUROBY2008.
The FIRA Cup robot-soccer event has well-defined game rules. It is organized into several categories, including the Micro-Robot Soccer Tournament (MiroSot), the Simulated Robot Soccer Tournament (SimuroSot) and the Humanoid Robot Soccer Tournament (HuroSot). These games are played under the watchful eyes of a human referee and the participants who are the robot players' managers and trainers. In MiroSot, participants need to devise good strategies using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, and develop sharp sensing and precise real-time control for the physical robot-soccer players. These basic capabilities are needed for the robot-soccer players to cooperate and coordinate autonomously (i.e., with "human hands-off"), and are crucial to winning the game against an opponent team. As many who have witnessed a MiroSot game will testify, the excitement always runs high especially when two strong robot-soccer teams meet. During the match, the robot players autonomously tackle many unfamiliar situations that arise due to the different strategies, hardware and control software technologies employed in the opponent robot players. Like in a FIFA World Cup soccer match, no one knows for sure which team will win until the final whistle. In SimuroSot, the game is played on a computer between two teams. With no physical robot involved, the game is decidedly one of complex strategy development using advanced AI techniques. In HuroSot, a robot player is more human-like in that it has two legs, hence the term humanoid. Given the current state of the art, the participants are only expected to endow their humanoid robot with, for instance, the ability to walk steadily, avoid obstacles simulating stationary opponent players and take penalty shots, all under the remote guidance of its human trainer.
This competition is divided in different competition categories: