RoboCup

Two robots competing for the ball at RoboCup 2026

RoboCup is an annual international robotics competition founded in 1996 by a group of university professors (including Hiroaki Kitano, Manuela M. Veloso, Itsuki Noda and Minoru Asada). The aim of the competition is to promote robotics and AI research by offering a publicly appealing – but formidable – challenge.

The name RoboCup is a contraction of the competition's full name, "Robot World Cup Initiative" (based on the FIFA World Cup), but there are many other areas of competition such as "RoboCupRescue", "RoboCup@Home" and "RoboCupJunior".

The official goal of the project is:

"By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup."

RoboCup leagues

Team rUNSWift competing in the Standard Platform League at RoboCup 2010 in Singapore
NimbRo-OP2X robot in Humanoid AdultSize game át RoboCup 2018 in Montreal.
NimbRo-OP2X robot in Humanoid AdultSize game át RoboCup 2018 in Montreal.

The contest currently has six major domains of competition, each with a number of leagues and sub-leagues. These include:

Each team is fully autonomous in all RoboCup leagues. Once the game starts, the only input from any human is from the referee.

RoboCup editions

Number Year Host city Host country Number of teams Number of countries Number of participants
1 RoboCup 1997 Nagoya  Japan 38 11
2 RoboCup 1998 Paris  France 63 19
3 RoboCup 1999 Stockholm  Sweden 85 23
4 RoboCup 2000 Melbourne  Australia 110 19
5 RoboCup 2001 Seattle  United States 141 22
6 RoboCup 2002 Fukuoka  Japan 197 29
7 RoboCup 2003 Padua  Italy 238 35
8 RoboCup 2004 Lisbon  Portugal 345 37
9 RoboCup 2005 Osaka  Japan 387 36
10 RoboCup 2006 Bremen  Germany 440 35
11 RoboCup 2007 Atlanta  United States 321 39 1,966
12 RoboCup 2008 Suzhou  China 373 35
13 RoboCup 2009 Graz  Austria 407 43 2,472
14 RoboCup 2010 Singapore  Singapore 500 40 3,000
15 RoboCup 2011 Istanbul  Turkey 451 40 2,691
16 RoboCup 2012 Mexico City  Mexico 381 42 2,356
17 RoboCup 2013 Eindhoven  Netherlands 410 45 3,033
18 RoboCup 2014 João Pessoa  Brazil 358 45 2,900
19 RoboCup 2015 Hefei  China 346 43 2,032
20 RoboCup 2016 Leipzig  Germany 404 45 3,500
21 RoboCup 2017 Nagoya  Japan 500 50 2,520
22 RoboCup 2018 Montreal  Canada 360 40 2,345
23 RoboCup 2019 Sydney  Australia 335 40 2,200
24 RoboCup 2021 Virtual 317 43 2,129
25 RoboCup 2022 Bangkok  Thailand
26 RoboCup 2023 Bordeaux  France
27 RoboCup 2024 Eindhoven  Netherlands
28 RoboCup 2025 Salvador  Brazil 45 2,000
29 RoboCup 2026 Incheon  Republic of Korea
30 RoboCup 2027 Nuremberg  Germany

The formal RoboCup competition was preceded by the (often unacknowledged) first International Micro Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (MIROSOT) held by KAIST in Taejon, Korea, in November 1996. This was won by an American team from Newton Labs, and the competition was shown on CNN.

RoboCup was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The planned host location of Bordeaux went on to host in 2023.

RoboCup Asia-Pacific editions

Year Host city Host country Number of teams Number of countries Number of participants Website
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2017 Bangkok  Thailand 130+ 25 1000+
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2018 Kish Island  Iran
Dubai  United Arab Emirates
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2019 Moscow  Russia
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2020 Virtual
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2021 Aichi Prefecture / Virtual  Japan Archived 2021-08-04 at the Wayback Machine
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2023 Pyeongchang  South Korea
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2024 Qingdao  China
RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2025 Abu Dhabi  United Arab Emirates [7]

European RoboCupJunior Championship

Year Host city Host country Number of teams Number of countries Number of participants Website
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2018 Pescara  Italy
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2019 Hanover  Germany
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2020 Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2021 Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2022 Guimarães  Portugal
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2023 Varaždin Croatia
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2024 Hannover  Germany
European RoboCupJunior Championship 2025 Bari  Italy

RoboCup local events

Warwick Mobile Robotics (from the University of Warwick) robot navigates red step fields, in the RoboCupRescue arena at the 2009 RoboCup German Open
Brainstormers Tribots (from Universität Osnabrück) play RFC Stuttgart (from Universität Stuttgart) in the RoboCupSoccer Middle-Size League at the 2009 RoboCup German Open

2026

2025

2024

2023

2021

2020

Events were cancelled due to COVID-19

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

See also

References

  1. ↑ "RoboCup: The Robot World Cup Initiative". RoboCup. 1995. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.49.7511. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Cite uses deprecated parameter |citeseerx= (help)
  2. ↑ "RoboCup: Objective". RoboCup. 1998. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  3. ↑ Ficht, Grzegorz; Farazi, Hafez; Brandenburger, Andre; Rodriguez, Diego; Pavlichenko, Dmytro; Allgeuer, Philipp; Hosseini, Mojtaba; Behnke, Sven (2018). "NimbRo-OP2X: Adult-Sized Open-Source 3D Printed Humanoid Robot". 2018 IEEE-RAS 18th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids). Beijing, China: IEEE. pp. 1–9. arXiv:1810.08395. Bibcode:2018arXiv181008395F. doi:10.1109/HUMANOIDS.2018.8625038. ISBN 978-1-5386-7283-9. S2CID 53044123.
  4. ↑ "RoboCup@Home – Where the best domestic service robots test themselves". RoboCup@Home. Robocup Federation, Inc. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  5. ↑ "Welcome to RoboCup@Work!". RoboCup@Work. Robocup Federation, Inc. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  6. ↑ "RoboCupJunior – Creating a learning environment for today, fostering technological advancement for tomorrow". junior.robocup.org. Retrieved 2018-04-16.
  7. ↑ "A New Goal for Open Source". Red Hat Blog. Red Hat, Inc. 20 May 2008. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  8. ↑ "RoboCup WM 2016 kommt nach Leipzig". 22 July 2014.
  9. ↑ "RoboCup2017 Nagoya Japan(ロボカップ2017)". Archived from the original on 2017-04-04. Retrieved 2017-04-03.
  10. ↑ "Voice News". 23 July 2024.
  11. ↑ "Robot Soccer at Newton Research Labs". www.newtonlabs.com. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  12. ↑ "ICCA member press release: Thailand Robotics Week 2017 & RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2017". Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  13. ↑ "Statement from RoboCup Federation and Bordeaux RoboCup LOC: Corona Virus (COVID-19)". robocup.org. Retrieved 2020-07-01.

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