Football robots are lighting up the pitch with their artificial intelligence and skills, writes Izwan Ismail
WHILE many of us are glued to the TV screens for the ongoing World Cup actions, Assoc Prof Dr Mohammad Faidzul Nasrudin has his eyes focused on football on the robotic pitch.
The Soccer Lab at the Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, is the test bed for all the football-playing robots developed by Mohammad and his team.
The robots, which come in two forms — micro robots and humanoids — may look like children’s remote control toys but they are more than that. Years of research and development have resulted in these wheeled and two-legged autonomous machines being able to “think” on their own and play football. “Once placed on the soccer mat, they (the robots) play on their own, get the ball and move or run towards the opponent’s side, and try to score,” says Mohammad.
“There will be no human interventions once the game starts as the robots will think for themselves. They have been programmed to do,” he says.
HOW IT STARTED
The faculty’s Technology Robotic Soccer team has been developing robots for football since late 2005 and Mohammad is one of the pioneers.
“During that time, the main reason we got involved in football-playing robots was to support learning in the faculty, where we apply artificial intelligence (AI) technology in robotics,” says Mohammad.
Today, he is assisted by his colleague Dr Lau Meng Cheng, five lecturers and 20 post graduate students who are passionate about robotics, as well as football.
Initially, the machines that were developed by the Soccer Lab didn’t look like robots at all. They were just palm-sized boxes with wheels on the side so that they could move easily and fast. These small box-shaped robots are called micro robots and UKM has 18 of them.
The other type of robot developed is the Humanoid, which is shaped more like human, with arms and legs. But unlike the faster and nimble micro robots, the humanoid robots are slow. Mohammad says although the robots may look simple and toyish, they are highly sophisticated, adding that the interesting and challenging part of developing the robots is equipping them with AI capabilities, so that they become a visionary lot.
“It took a lot of effort and research, and one that will differentiate the robots from toys,” he says.
As the robotic football requires strategy, the robots need to be intelligent. In short, the challenge involves making the robot recognise what it sees. “To achieve this, artificial intelligence technology is used in making the neural network and fuzzy logic for the robots,” says Mohammad.
GIVING INTELLIGENCE
So how do the robots see and know what to do? Mohammad says a camera, positioned above the 4m x 6m pitch, serves as the eyes for the robots. “The camera is connected to a PC and will take real-time video to get the position of the robots and ball on the field, and then relay the co-ordinate information to the robots within seconds via Bluetooth connection,” he says.
“We use a high-end industrial camera that can capture high frame rates like 100 frame per second and can send information to the robots in real time.”
Each robot also has a unique colour patch on top of them to determine their role — striker, goalkeeper and the opponent. For example, if the robot is at a coordinate five-10 and the ball is at coordinate five-eight, the computer will assign the robot to go to the ball’s co-ordinate and plan the next move.
“The robot has been programmed to bring the ball and shoot it into the goal,” says Mohammad.
The robots are also subjected to international football rules such as penalty, free ball, handball, fault, etc. In terms of movement, the micro robots are faster as they use wheels to move. The more sophisticated humanoid robots move slower, due to the use of legs.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Mohammad’s football-playing robot team has made a couple of achievements at the international level. “We’ve participated in a number of international tournaments and have won a couple of titles in the Federation of International Robot-Soccer Association, or Fira, since 2006,” he says.
The association organises the World Cup football for robots known as Roboworld Cup and Congress every year at different locations across the world.
During the 2012 championship that took place in Bristol, United Kingdom, the UKM team won second place in the micro robot tournament (MiroSot). Then last year, when Malaysia became the host in Shah Alam, the UKM (Malaysian) team became champions in the free kick AndroSot category, beating countries which included South Korea, Mexico and Taiwan.
The robotic football game plays five minutes per first half but can drag on for a longer period of time in the event of a draw.
MOVING FORWARD
What Mohammad and his team do at the Soccer Lab is just a small part of a bigger picture in robotics study. “It’s not just football. The robot is also designed to compete in other sports such as marathons, basketball, weight lifting, etc.,” he says, adding that the Vision technology used by the robots can also be applied to aid indoor games for children.
The Information, Science and Technology Faculty is also working with other faculties such as Education to introduce the robotics programme to school students under Stemind — the science technology and mathematics in education initiative.
“We teach robotics in schools in the vicinity. There are also students from Felda who come here to learn robotics,” says Mohamad.