Daily news

10 January 2004

Robotic Segways play soccer with humans

An unconventional version of soccer is being played by US scientists in a bid to develop to help better co-operation between robots and humans.

Researchers constructed the soccer playing robots by modifying Segway personal transporters. The two-wheeled transporters are controlled by two on-board laptops and can play soccer by pushing a ball along the ground. Running into the ball at speed enables them to pass to one another and even shoot for goal.

But the plan of the researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, is not just to create a robot soccer team. The droids are designed to play the game with humans riding ordinary Segways.

CMU researcher Brett Browning told New Scientist that the exercise could help engineers develop robots capable of working effectively with humans in the future. One day, robots could routinely help people with construction work, search and rescue operations and space exploration, he says.


“What is really exciting is the different take on human-robot interaction,” Browning says. “Most human-robot research focuses on a master-slave type of relationship. We really need to investigate ways to have robots co-operate with humans.”

Unpredictable movements

The rules of soccer have been modified to encourage cooperation between human and robot players. For example, each goal must include at least one pass between a human and robot. And, at the moment, no dribbling or tackling is allowed to prevent any nasty accidents.

Browning adds that robot players must be able to learn automatically how to respond to other players, in particular the unpredictable movements of the human players.

Each Segway soccer bot uses a camera to keep track of the ball and other players. One on-board laptop computer processes this visual information while another laptop determines what action should be taken.

The robots can also be controlled remotely. This lets the researchers pre-program certain movements into a robot’s memory. A robot player’s calculations and actions can also be downloaded for later analysis.

Segways have proven a popular transportation platform for robotics researchers since their debut in 2001. A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made a Segway-based robot, called Cardea, that can navigate the laboratory’s hallways and open and close doors.