World Cup 2014: Can Scotland's robot team snatch glory?

Scotland’s team for its belated entry into the Brazil World Cup has some serious quirks - such as the fact that the players find it difficult to remember which goal is which, and are frequently sent off for falling over.

Regardless, the Edinburgh-based squad’s players, two-foot Nao robots which follow and kick balls without outside control, are genuinely world-class - they reached the quarter final of Robocup 2012, and their (human) coaches are hopeful they can repeat or better the feat in Brazil this month.

“The Robocup competition was created after Gary Kasparov was beaten by IBM’s Deep Blue computer at chess in 1997,” says Dr Subramanian Ramamoorthy, “The thinking was, ‘Now that we’ve done it inside a computer, can we do it in the physical world?’ The objective is that by 2050, we’ll be able to have a team of humanoid robots that can beat the FIFA world champions.”

This year’s competition will take place in João Pessoa, State of Paraíba in Brazil, and will attract 4,000 engineers and scientists from 45 countries around the world - the annual competition is the biggest robotics event on Earth.

Technologies developed for Robocup’s autonomous robot teams have been used in real-world situations such as the Fukushima disaster.

Dr Ramamoorthy admits that it is “very difficult” to get robots to play football - especially football played according to Robocup’s strict rules, which are very similar to the human sport, with details such as two halves, fouls and free kicks.

Robots pose difficulties which human teams rarely face - such as the fact that robots frequently fall over, and thus defenders may suddenly have to become strikers. Even programming robots to know where they are on the pitch can be difficult.

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“There’s a certain level of robot football which is just about getting them to walk on two feet and know where they are,” says Dr Ramamoorthy, “Very few teams have intelligence about other players - robots which think, “I should go here, because the defender will go there.” It’s easier in a simulation - but when you’re in a noisy setting, and robots ‘see’ using cameras similar to PC webcams, it’s much, much harder.”

The Edinburgh team - Edinferno - plays in the ‘standard league’, using humanoid Nao robots on a symmetrical pitch, which can lead to unfortunate “own goal” moments, as many players are not great at distinguishing one goal from another.

“The standard platform league is true to the vision of Robocup,” Dr Ramamoorthy says, “Players have two legs, and have to turn around and find the ball - and are not allowed information from outside. Progress has been slow, but each gain we make is impactful - the same intelligence components that allow players to work together, or locate a ball, will be used in autonomous cars, or robots in the home.”

This year will see the debut of a ‘coach’ robot who can handle some of the thornier problems of robot football - such as offering strategic advice such as pointing out undefended flanks, much as a human coach would do.

“This year, there’s access to a coach robot who can observe play,” says Dr Ramamoorthy. “He can only speak limited amounts, but he can say things such as, ‘You are lost right now’.”

The best football - at least to human eyes - at Robocup will probably not be the slow-moving games played by humanoids, though - instead, the sharpest players are likely to resemble tin cans.

“We can simulate various pieces of the football game well,” says Dr Ramamoorthy, “The Small Sized League consists of not very big robots, about the size of a tin can, on two wheels. They play a pretty decent game of football - if you watch it from above.”

In Brazil, the team will face off against other teams of Nao robots programmed by experts from universities around the world - alongside competitions for robots which can help the disabled, and manage logistics in a factory setting.

“Our best finish has already been the quarter finals in 2012. We have only been going for four years, but we come from a department that’s very strong in artificial intelligence and robotics.” says Dr Ramamoorthy. “We would like to get back into the knockout stages, and we are trying our best to go beyond that. ”