INTRODUCTION

The biggest robot soccer competition ever kicked off this year on Aug. 4, in Seattle, Washington with over 100 entrants competing in different leagues for the title of top team.

Billed as the largest and most important autonomous robot competition in the world, the tournament was in its fifth year, having attracted teams from over 23 countries.

The contest was established with the ultimate aim of creating a squad of mechanical players that can take on, and beat, the best human teams, by 2050 (see www.robocup.org).

IRANIAN PARTICIPATION

Over the past few years, teams from Iran have achieved spectacular results in the games, becoming the world champions in the midsize league in 1999, European champions in 2000, and third in the world in 2000.

This year, many teams from Iran qualified for the competitions. Qualification is typically based on reaching a verifiable and proven specified level of performance, for both software (simulation) and hardware (small/midsize) teams.

Participating teams were:

1. Simulation League: Sharif Arvand, Sharif University of Technology

2. Simulation League: UTUtd, Tehran University

3. Simulation League: Pasargad, Amirkabir University of Technology

4. Simulation League: Helli-Respina, Allameh Helli High School

5. Simulation League: SBCe, Shahid Beheshti University

6. Rescue Simulation: Arian, Sharif University of Technology

7. Small Robot League: Sharif CESR, Sharif University of Technology

8. Midsize Robot League: Sharif CE, Sharif University of Technology

Those attending the competitions in Seattle included 11 students and 4 faculty members from Sharif University of Technology (Profs. Amir Hossein Jahangir, Mansour Jamzad, Mohammad Taghi Manzuri, and Jafar Habibi), in addition to 3 students from Tehran University, and 1 student (and the only female team member) from Amirkabir University of Technology. Other team members from these schools and other universities participated remotely from Tehran. Some of the members (from Amirkabir University and Allameh Helli High School especially) did so since they were unable to obtain US visas for travel to Seattle despite repeated attempts and much effort.

The competitions were held in the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in downtown Seattle. The scene at the two halls where the competition was taking place was a very dynamic one, with students reporting results back to Tehran via the Internet, and team members in Tehran working late into the night to incorporate the latest strategies into team programs and uploading and testing them almost live in Seattle. The dedication and enthusiasm of the students was very much evident and the level of excitement, especially in live chat and programming sessions at 2 am with Tehran, absolutely incredible.

The teams received financial support through various groups and organizations, their own schools, the Sharif University Association (for Sharif students), and the Science and Arts Foundation (for Tehran University, Allameh Helli High School, and Amirkabir University students).

PERFORMANCE OF IRANIAN TEAMS

A summary of the results achieved by Iranian teams in this year's games is given below:

1. ENGINEERING CHALLENGE AWARD: Best engineering paper award (from among 83 submitted papers) went to the following paper from Sharif University of Technology:

"A First Vision System for Middle Size Robots in Robocup", M. Jamzad, B.S. Sadjad, V.S. Mirrokni, M. Kazemi, H. Chitsaz, A. Heydarnoori, M.T. Hajiaghai, and E. Chiniforooshan, Computer Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology, Iran

2. WORLD CHAMPIONS: Rescue Simulation League: Arian Team, Sharif University of Technology.

The Arian team dominated the games here after beating, among others, the Japan University of Electro-Communications and the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. This league was largely populated by teams from Japan, with the only 2 non-Japanese teams from Iran (led by Prof. Jafar Habibi) and Australia (also beaten by Iran).

Full details and scores are at:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~robocup2001/RescueScores.html

3. WORLD CHAMPIONS: Coach Competition: Simulation League: Arvand Team, Sharif University of Technology.

In achieving this title, Sharif Arvand beat the teams from Tokyo Institute of Technology (2-0), KUL Belgium (3-0), University of Bremen, Germany (16-0), Linkoping University, Sweden (11-0), Carnegie Mellon University, USA (5-1), and the University of Essex (4-2).

4. THIRD PLACE: Coach Competition: Simulation League: Allameh Helli High School, Tehran, led by Mr. Ahmad Morshedian from Tehran.

The Helli-Respina team was the only high school team that qualified and participated in the games and drew the attention of practically everybody with their performance. They beat teams from schools such as University of Lubeck, Germany (8-0), University of Alberta, Canada (23-0), University of Girona, Spain (3-0), and the University of Tehran (4-0), while drawing 0-0 against Humboldt University, Germany. Also in the second round of Simulation League competitions, they were ranked the top team in "Scientific Challenge" among 24 qualifying teams. They also received an award for their performance as the only high school team in the games.

5. WORLD CHAMPIONS: Rescue Robot League: In this league no team achieved the required score and therefore no winners were announced. However, from the technical stand point, the team from Sharif University was recognized as the best team and took the best working robot award.

The search-and-rescue prototype robot, designed by the Sharif University, was recognized as the best robot among six competing machines - five from the US and one from the UK.

The robots had been programmed to autonomously search for probable injured people on a hypothetical quake-stricken and mountainous terrain, independent from human steering. The Iranian robot managed to identify the highest number of the injured.

Sharif's Rescue Robot team is featured this month in MIT's Technology Review. Read about it at http://www.techreview.com/web/johnston/johnston083001.asp

6. WORLD CLASS PERFORMANCE BY OTHER SCHOOLS: Teams from Tehran University and Shahid Beheshti University also made it to the second round of Simulation League games. Tehran University beat teams from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan (23-0), University of Osnabrueck, Germany (4-0), and Humboldt University, Germany (3-1). Shahid Beheshti University's team beat Dalhousie University, Canada (6-1), University of Oulu, Finland (5-2), and the University of Virginia, USA (12-0).

The Iranian hardware teams (midsize and small size) did not fare as well as past years due to unexpected on site technical difficulties mostly with the robots' wireless communication systems. Nonetheless they did manage to beat many strong opponents.

This year marked Iran's first participation in the Small Size League, in a team led by Prof. Mohammad Taghi Manzuri, Sharif University of Technology, which beat University of Alberta, Canada (4-1).

Iran's Midsize League team, led by Prof. Mansour Jamzad (World Champions in 1999, Eurocup champions 2001, and third place winners in 2000), beat Rome University "La Sapienza", Italy (10-0), and the University of Ulm, Germany (4-1). The very innovative design of their robot however, won the competition's engineering challenge award (see item 1 above).

POST-GAME EVENTS

Thanks to support received by the Science and Arts Foundation from Iranians worldwide, and especially the Iranian community in Seattle and the Silicon Valley, a number of post-game events were arranged for the teams including a tour of Microsoft.

A banquet dinner was also organized for team members by the Sharif University Association during which awards were presented to student members of teams from Sharif. Teams from Tehran University, Amirkabir University, and Allameh Helli High School (some of whom are in Iran) received, or will soon receive similar awards from the Science and Arts Foundation.

SAF SUPPORT

About 6 weeks prior to the games, it came to the attention of the Science and Arts Foundation that many teams have financial difficulties that may prevent them from attending the competition. SAF consequently decided to ask Iranian expatriates to help with this cause. This call was enthusiastically answered and resulted in $22,435 dollars to be raised.

The expenses for teams other than Sharif University amounted to about $10,000. This included purchase of over $3,000 worth of technical books to be donated to Sharif University Library.

The remainder of the fund will be used for next year's competition which will be held at the same time as the Soccer Worldcup in in Japan, and where Iran expects to have many more teams participating. SAF hopes to raise the necessary funds by mid-2002 so that money will not be an issue for next year's qualifying teams. We estimate the cost will be about $30,000.

In talks with team leaders from Iran, SAF also expressed strong interest in supporting robocup teams from the provinces for next year, as well as participating in and supporting a project at Amirkabir University on design and implementation of an autonomous landmine detection robot (critical for Iran and many other war-stricken countries worldwide). More details will follow.

The Science and Arts Foundation wishes to extend its sincere thanks and gratitude to all those who helped with the costs associated with supporting this event, as well as coordination of activities before and during the games, and especially the Iranian community in Seattle who helped with all they could, cheered the teams on during the games and provided much needed and appreciated local support.

Once again, thank you all. See you in Robocup 2002 in Japan!

... Payvand News - 9/17/01 ... --