Outlook for the Future - Intelligent Robots Kicked-Off in Bangkok Today

RoboCup 2022
Bangkok, Thailand
July 13 - 16, Competitions
July 17, Scientific Symposium

Bangkok, July 13, 2022

Outlook for the Future - Intelligent Robots Kicked-Off in Bangkok Today


It is a meeting of intelligent robots and smart minds: From today until July 16th, the 25th international RoboCup will take place at the Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Center (BITEC). At this renowned world championship for intelligent robots, top scientific achievements come along with application-related topics and demonstrate how challenges of the future can be mastered. About 1,400 participants from 39 countries and regions compete against each other in 17 disciplines. The competitions are complemented by an exhibition and, for the first time, by presentations of RoboCup alumni who have succeeded in founding new companies to become frontline entrepreneurs in pioneering robotics technologies. The event closes with the international RoboCup Scientific Symposium on July 17th.

“For the first time, the international RoboCup event is coming to Thailand,” says Prof. Jackrit Suthakorn of Mahidol University and General Chair of RoboCup 2022. “Innovations from RoboCup can help to tackle various societal challenges in the future”. “For several years the Local Organization Committee has been preparing to make the first and long-awaited RoboCup possible to be held in presence since 2019”.

Soccer, Rescue, Industrial & Home: Competitions in more than 17 Disciplines
In the RoboCup Major Leagues, teams of young scientists, PhD students and professors compete against each other. A main focus of the competitions are robots playing soccer. In eight different disciplines – a distinction is made here between hardware and software – the autonomously acting teams of robots play the ball across the field. Three other categories focus on application scenarios. The robots show how they can help around the house at RoboCup@Home, support rescue missions at RoboCup Rescue or optimize work and logistics processes at RoboCup Industrial.

Young students are challenged in RoboCup Junior. Pupils up to the age of 20 let robots play football, present a choreography or overcome a rescue course – just like their role models.

Vision for 2050
"RoboCup and its worldwide scientific community has demonstrated high scientific quality and technological achievements in addressing its formidable challenges even under the conditions of the worldwide pandemic,” says Prof. Peter Stone, the President of the RoboCup Federation. "The nature of the competition arouses particular ambition among the participants in order to quickly and steadily advance the results that are enormously relevant for society, science and the economy." It is therefore not surprising that the RoboCup community has set itself ambitious and exciting goals which address fundamental scientific challenges in multiple leagues towards the goal of autonomously acting soccer playing humanoid robots playing on level par with the FIFA world champions in 2050 and also address highly relevant societal challenges.

In response to the great earthquake in Kobe, Japan, in 2001, the Rescue Robot League was established to advance research in this field and to assist first responders in making their challenging tasks in protecting lives more safe and efficient. The robot Quince developed here was used in 2011 to help in the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant as one of only a few robot systems used for first response. The fast 11 versus 11 autonomous robot teams of the Small Size League impress by their highly dynamic and cooperative team play. One of the many well trained experts and technological spin-offs coming out from RoboCup resulted in the establishment of Kiva Systems, which was bought in 2012 by Amazon for 775 M$.

In the RoboCup@Home League science and technology for intelligent robots are investigated, which can provide a variety of helping tasks assisting humans in their home environment using individual as well as several standard robots. The RoboCup Logistics and RoboCup@Work Leagues have been pioneering research challenges for “Industry 4.0” at a time when this highly relevant topic had not yet been coined. They address open research questions related to future flexible industrial production involving open research questions in mobile manipulation and underlying logistical processes and work processes within factories.

Startup Pitching Event
For the first time selected RoboCup Alumni from startups grown out of RoboCup will be sharing their insights and successes from spinning out advanced technologies and experts from RoboCup to start new businesses in talks and discussions complementing the competitions.

25th Scientific Symposium Scientists and technology experts exchange and discuss the latest developments in RoboCup in the Symposium held on July 17th. In addition to presentations by contributed scientific articles, keynotes will be given by four renowned experts Prof. Tadokoro of Tohoku University from Japan, Prof. Angelica Lim of Simon Fraser University from Canada, Prof. Manukid Parnichkun of the Asian Institute of Technology from Thailand and Prof. Mary-Ann Williams of the University of New South Wales from Australia. Remote online participation in the Symposium is possible and the information will be shared with all registered participants.

About Mahidol University
Mahidol University is one of the leading universities in Thailand and in Asia. Its Center for Biomedical and Robotics Technology’s (BART Lab) vision is to enhance partnership between human experts (like surgeons) and machines (computers and robots) that seeks to utilize the capacity of both to perform a task better than either one can perform alone.

About RoboCup
RoboCup is the leading pioneering and most diverse competition for intelligent robots, and one of the world's most important technology events in research and training. The World Cup of robots combines a variety of interdisciplinary challenges from robotics, artificial intelligence, informatics, as well as electrical and mechanical engineering, among others. As the central discipline, robots play soccer in different leagues. Additional visionary application disciplines, such as intelligent robots as assistants for rescue missions, in households and in industrial production have successively been added to address formidable societal and scientific challenges.

Contact at RoboCup Federation
media@robocup.org

Information on the Web:
RoboCup 2022: https://2022.robocup.org/
RoboCup 2022 Symposium: https://2022.robocup.org/symposium-registration.php
RoboCup 2022 Startup pitching: https://2022.robocup.org/list_sponsors_exhibitors.php
Live streams via: http://www.robocup.live/

Mahidol University, BART Lab: https://www.bartlab.org/
RoboCup Federation: www.robocup.org