At Eindhoven University of Technology, a team of researchers and students is working on the development of soccer robots. Each year, they play at the robot soccer world championship, the RoboCup, against teams from different universities, research institutes and companies. The RoboCup is the global tournament for autonomous robots, an event that decides who has the best team of soccer robots.

Because the robots aren't as good as the Messis and Ronaldos of this world, FIFA rules are adjusted: a smaller pitch, a smaller goal, and fewer players per team. In 2050, these robots aim to defeat the human soccer world champions at their own game. However, there is a crucial difference with human soccer: in human soccer the coaches keep their strategy secret whereas after the RoboCup, all robot designs, all computer code and all strategies are freely shared and discussed. In this way the teams can learn from each other and together improve more quickly, and so the technology advances faster. The robots have to be able to recognize a ball, dribble, understand the rules of the game, work together and eventually learn to stand on two legs.

What a useless idea, soccer-playing robots

What use are soccer-playing robots to mankind anyway? That is actually not the right question. A better question would be: what is the use of soccer-playing robots to scientists? By becoming very good at soccer—a game that people master very well, but animals and machines don't at all—the scientists have a practical goal. Of course, each year the teams make things a little more difficult because everyone wants to win that cherished RoboCup. The rules are also adjusted a little each year to create new challenges for the robots: the goal gets a little bigger, or you can't dribble backwards for long. These are all measures that raise the bar, and ensure that the development of robotics is encouraged.

The RoboCup is, as it were, the Formula 1 of the autonomous robotics. Just as the innovations from Formula 1 lead to improvements in passenger cars, innovations from soccer robots are used to improve care and rescue robots.

What does such a soccer robot look like now? What components make up such a robot and why? How does he know what his teammates are doing? Do penalties give soccer robots nightmares? Here we discuss the most interesting features of the robots of the Eindhoven soccer robot team, Tech United.