2023-07-10 05:30:17
Match between robots from the humanoid league, during the 26th edition of the RoboCup, in Bordeaux, July 6, 2023. VALENTIN VIDEGRAIN
On a rectangle of plastic lawn bordered by white lines and two goals, small red or blue robots trample, bobbing their heads, while others lie inanimate on the edge of the mini-pitch. At the whistle of the referee (human), one of them advances towards the ball located on the central circle, kicks it with a foot equipped with four crampons, before following its “race” – rather a careful wandering – while other automatons, who have fallen while trying to follow him, undertake strange gymnastics to get back on their feet. A teammate arrives near the ball, positions himself without the opposing team really reacting, and, after one or two seconds of immobility, relaxes one leg and scores the first goal of the game. There will be three more before the final whistle, all scored by the Bordeaux blue team Rhoban, in this friendly match against a Korean team.
While the coaches shake hands, the human team members are already typing on their computers to correct an aberrant behavior or, screwdriver in hand, put the batteries back on charge or reassemble a failing leg. Céline Dobigeon, professor of mechanical engineering at the IUT of Bordeaux, who designed and manufactured the small humanoids of the Rhoban team, thus remains on the lookout for the slightest failures of her protégés, equipped “of twenty aluminum motors and limbs, less deformable than carbon”.
These scenes were reproduced endlessly during the RoboCup, the biggest international robotics competition, organized for its 26th edition in Bordeaux, which brought together from July 4 to 10 some 2,500 competitors from 45 countries – researchers and students, but also high school students. Several leagues competed around the round ball: small and large humanoid robots, homemade or identical “monotypes”, like the little Nao, of French design – it is then the programming that makes the difference -, but also barrels and pyramids mounted on wheels, much more lively, aggressive and coordinated.
Match between robots from the humanoid league, during the 26th edition of the RoboCup, in Bordeaux, July 6, 2023. ROMAIN PERROCHEAU / AFP
“I hope DeepMind will compete next year”
Football is not the only competition field of the RoboCup, where robots compete in tests of home automation, repetitive industrial tasks or even in tests of exploration of disaster zones. The goal? Advance this form “embodied intelligence” What are robots, summarizes Olivier Ly, from the Bordeaux Computer Science Research Laboratory (Labri), organizer of the RoboCup. His Rhoban team has already won four times the league of small humanoids in football. On the evening of Sunday July 9, she could celebrate a fifth trophy, after a 5-2 victory against her Japanese rivals, from whom she took the title. “The score was 2-2 at halftime, it was really close, then their engines overheated”comments Olivier Ly.
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