Abu Dhabi: Khalifa University of Science and Technology team of 14 students and academics won second place in the Small Robotics Championship at the Robo-Cup 2024 in Netherlands.
The Khalifa University team, which consists of members from various disciplines, participated in the global championship that included more than 300 teams from 45 countries in 17 competitions distributed over five championships.
It was Khalifa Univesity team’s first appearance at the Robo-Cup 2024 Challenge which is known as the largest robotics competition in the world. The main aim of the championship is share knowledge and accelerate the pace of development in the field of robotics.
The World Robot Soccer Cup Challenge is organised by the Eindhoven University of Technology in collaboration with the non-profit organisation Promotek 2050, which aims to promote knowledge in the field of robotics among individuals on a large scale.
Advance technology
Dr Hamad Karaki, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Khalifa University, and Principal Investigator of the Khalifa University Robotics Champions project, said: “Winning second place in an international robotics competition held in Europe demonstrates Khalifa University’s expertise in advanced technology. This win is particularly significant now that Khalifa University is preparing to host and organise the 36th edition of the International Robotics and Intelligent Systems Conference (IROSS 2024) in Abu Dhabi next October. We congratulate the team for successfully developing robots equipped with special capabilities that helped them achieve outstanding results.”
The team
The team includes faculty and students from Khalifa University’s departments of Mechanical, Nuclear, Computer Science, Aerospace and Computer Engineering. Dr. Hamad Karki, Dr. Julia De Masi, Program Manager and Visiting Scholar, and Dr. Azer Babayev serve as technical advisers to the team.
Teams of five autonomous robots play football in the Robot Cup for the small category using a size 1 FIFA-standard football. The tournament showcases the exciting side of football and brings together teams of medium-height football robots in a match of five robots per team that move around the field autonomously without any human intervention. Each team has designed its own device, ensuring that all sensors are present in the robot, and that the required standards for the size and weight of the robots are taken into account.
How to play
Using sensors, robots played strategically and shared their locations and other data with each other, while driving and kicking skills added an element of excitement and entertainment to the Robot Cup competitions, and instructions from the human referee were relayed to the players via Wi-Fi.
The Robo-Cup 2024 categories included autonomous soccer robots, household robots that assist with daily tasks, rescue robots that detect victims in disasters, industrial robots, and competitions for children, where around 1,000 young participants competed with their own robots that they designed and programmed themselves.
