Tech United defending two world titles at the robot World Cup 2022

July 8, 2022

just as the Dutch Lionesses will aim for victory at Women's Euro 2022, the autonomous soccer and service robots of Tech United will be competing for the win at RoboCup 2022 in Thailand next week.

With names such as 'Van der Tandwiel', 'Robodinho' and 'Van Perslucht', the soccer robots have appropriate football names. Female football names will also be used, such as Jackie Groenestroom, Lieke Motors and Vivianne Wielema. Photo: Bart van Overbeeke

The Dutch Lionesses are on the eve of the European Championship (Women’s Euro 2022) in England, but they are not the only Dutch team who will aim to defend their title at a major tournament. Just under 10,000 kilometers away, in Bangkok to be exact, our robotics team Tech United will be playing for the world titles in robot soccer and service robotics during the RoboCup 2022 next week (July 13th to 16th). At the previous World Cup in 2019, they managed to win both titles. Can they repeat that impressive feat this year?

To be fair, the soccer robots do not yet have the same refined technique as the women of Orange, but they are getting a little better and more advanced every year. Last month, Tech United even played against a professional women's team of flesh and blood for the first time to mark the conclusion of the European Championship robot soccer in Portugal.

Against the women of soccer club Vitória SC, the soccer robots achieved a good draw (4-4) and even won the penalty kick series, although it should be noted that the Vitória SC footballers did not play at full strength. Watch a summary here.

Against a professional women's team, the soccer robots won after penalty kicks. Photo: Whale's Mouth

Milestone

The match against Vitória SC may go down in the books as a demonstration match, but the fact that the soccer robots were able to ‘outplay’ human players says a lot about the progression of Tech United and robot soccer. "It's a milestone. Apparently, the robots are advanced enough to be able to compete with human players. However, the opponent had to wear dark clothing though, otherwise the robots could not recognize them well enough," explains team member Ruben Beumer.

The goal of Tech United and the RoboCup tournaments is to beat the human world champions in football in 2050 with autonomous soccer robots. Whether they are on schedule is hard to tell, according to Beumer. What he does see is how his team is getting better every year and learning new things. Even during the corona period - the last three years there was no World Championship for that reason - the team has continued to develop the technology.

Changing strategies

Dribbling, for example, has improved. Beumer: "The robots are allowed to ‘carry’ the ball for a maximum of three meters, then they have to pass or shoot. The solution is a human dribble, in which you push the ball a bit in front of you, as it were, and then pick it up again. This is quite difficult to program, because if you push the ball too hard or at the wrong moment, you lose it. So, the robot has to be able to detect exactly where the opponents are in order to execute this properly."

Service robot HERO in action. Photo: Bart van Overbeeke

The Eindhoven team is also trying to get the robots to switch strategies during the upcoming matches. "Think, for example, of dropping back to counter," says Beumer. "Or specifically setting up an attack via the right or left side." In addition to setting up the various strategies, choosing the best one is also a challenge. "Based on the game situation, the robots have to flawlessly 'sense' when they can start with a certain strategy, and also when it should stop with that strategy."

Another world title?

In Bangkok, Tech United's service robot will also be in action in the so-called @Home league. In this, robots have to perform various household tasks and are judged by a jury. Tech United's healthcare robot HERO is also the title holder here, but the competition is fierce this year.

"We are judged on different scenarios," clarifies Peter van Dooren, leader of Tech United's service robot team. "This year, there are tasks such as taking out the garbage, and welcoming and greeting people. The judges pay attention to every detail, such as interacting with people. It will be tough, but we are going for the title again."

According to Van Dooren, the biggest challenge is associated with the new environment HERO will find itself in during the tournament. "HERO can already do a lot by itself, like recognizing people and picking up objects. But where our test environment is already familiar territory, it will soon have to deal with a whole new location and different objects. We need to prepare it for that as best we can with our programming."

Blank

For HERO, it will be its second World Cup, after it made its debut in 2019, and thus also won immediately. Whether HERO will succeed again, Van Dooren finds it difficult to say. As with the soccer competition, it is again the first World Cup tournament in three years. "We go into it pretty blank; we have no idea how our opponents have developed over the last three years," said Van Dooren.

If the opponents do better than expected, this isn’t seen as a problem for Tech United. In fact, Beumer sees that as something very positive. "The RoboCup is an open-source competition, which means that after each tournament all data is shared with all teams. Because of this, the teams are constantly challenged and must constantly innovate to stay ahead of the competition. This makes the competition stronger every year."

Whether it's the Orange Lionesses, soccer robots, or a service robot, the chances are high that a new Dutch champion will be crowned over the coming weeks. And very possibly, a joint victory tour through the canals of Amsterdam will even be a possibility.

Media contact

Frans Raaijmakers
(Science Information Officer)
Barry van der Meer
(Head of Department)

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