The threefold European champions ‘B-Human’ defied challenges from 14 teams representing six nations to win the RoboCup German Open 2012. The championship match held in Magdeburg was in the RoboCup “Standard Platform League”. The team from the University of Bremen and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) therefore successfully maintained its winning series of 49 games.
An unerring shot within the penalty area, a desperate attempt to block it from the goalkeeper – but just a split second too late: the B-Human striker scores an own goal. This was the first time in the “Standard Platform League” that the RoboCup German Open 2012 was played with goals of the same color. The subsequently completely symmetrical playing field meant that the two-legged robot soccer players had to be especially carefully programmed to ensure they played in the right direction. But the own goal was soon forgotten. In a total of six matches the B-Human team shot the ball 55 times deep into the right net, convincingly defending its title from the previous year.
The B-Human team results from a cooperation project between the research area entitled “Cyber Physical Systems”, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), and the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Bremen. The robot team plays in the “Standard Platform League” of the RoboCup, the champions’ league in robot soccer. The RoboCup is an international initiative to promote research in the areas of artificial intelligence and robotics. The commonly shared objective is to develop a team of autonomous humanoid robots capable of defeating the reigning human champions in the year 2050. Different leagues have been created to fit the different research focuses. The “Standard Platform League” encompasses teams playing with the two-legged Nao robot hardware developed by the French enterprise Aldebaran Robotics. Therefore, the challenge for the teams lies in the area of software development – in other words, development of the robot’s artificial intelligence. After each world championship victory, B-Human makes its software generally available so that other teams can benefit, too. For example, B-Human’s opponent in the final of 2010, RoboEireann, was able to make use of the published software solutions for fast and stable forward motion.
Following its fourth European championship victory, the team naturally has high hopes of winning the world championship to be held in Mexico City in June. The reigning B-Human champion team would be happy to talk with anyone wishing to act as a future sponsor.
For further information, readers are invited to visit the following websites:
Official homepage of the RoboCup German Open 2012:http://www.robocupgermanopen.de
Results table:http://www.tzi.de/spl/bin/view/Website/GermanOpenResults2012
Webseite Team B-Human: http://www.b-human.de
B-Human on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/pennybhuman
B-Human on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/pages/B-Human/204965249522727
Dr. Thomas Röfer
Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI)
Cyber-Physical Systems
Phone: +49 (0)421 218-64200
E-Mail: Thomas.Roeferprotect me ?!dfkiprotect me ?!.de
E-Mail: Team B-Human: grp-bhumanprotect me ?!informatik.uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
Internet: http://www.dfki.de/cps
Franziska Martin, M.A.
Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI)
Phone: +49 (0)421 218-63951
E-Mail: Franziska.Martinprotect me ?!dfkiprotect me ?!.de
