While most football fans are anxiously waiting for the Football World Cup 2010 to kick off this summer, others are currently enjoying the RoboCup 2010 event, now in full swing in Osaka. Of course, not all football fans know about it, nor will they be interested until the year 2050, when this project started in 1997 will hopefully have a team of humanoids ready to play a team of human players.

As expected, the robot I would like to present now is a Japanese one, built by professor Minoru Asada at Osaka University and the Osaka Institute of Technology, according to crunchgear. You will be able to see a video with this robot in action, but don't expect it to do an overhead kick or something. The scientists working on developing the ultimate soccer robot still have a long way to go before they make the “perfect player.”

It runs on a servo motor developed by famous robot manufacturers Vstone, which has a torque power of 327 kg/cm and has 22 flexible joints. The movement is slow, but somewhat more accurate than what we have seen on previous models of robots so far.

Of course, this model here is competing in the adult-sized category at the RoboCup 2010, meaning it measures between 130 and 160 centimeters. There are also the kid and teen size categories of robots in this science-sports cup, but those are not expected to win against a team of humans. The total number of participants at this year's RoboCup is of 225 teams, coming from all over the world.

Until 2050, this event will keep uniting robot builders and when the time comes, if the technology is ready, I bet the entire world will be watching the football event between man and machine. I am not sure on whom to bet yet, or whether I should even expect a team of football playing humanoids to be ready by then. More on this subject on robonable.




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