BY KYLE CARROLL
A team of teen robots, are set to represent Australia at the Robo-cup soccer world championship next weekend in Montreal, Canada.
Newcastle University is behind the development of these one metre tall, 3-D printed, human-like robots, named NUbots, dating all the way back to 2002 when they competed in their first RoboCup.
Although much more developed now, the robots have the ability to visually locate the ball on the soccer field, navigate a path to it, judge space and distance to hopefully score a goal.
Head of the Newcastle Robotics Laboratory at the University’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Associate Professor, Stephan Chalup, says this is a team effort, with multiple skills involved.
“The robots play soccer autonomously, so we implement an artificial brain that is a software system, which requires software engineering skills, we also have computer scientists, and researchers into artificial learning,” he said.
Professor Chalup said, “RoboCup has a lot of collaboration, through communication between researchers in different countries, with the inclusion of school children,” he continued, “its a great venue for this collaboration to take place.”
“The aim of RoboCup is to establish a team of robots that can win against the world soccer champion team by 2050,” he said.
These robots are a glimpse of the future and an example of what artificial intelligence can do.
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| Newcastle University NUbots. Image: University of Newcastle |