School and university students from local and foreign institutions competed in the 13th RoboCup Iran Open competitions held at the Tehran Permanent International Fairground from April 3 to 7.
The annual competitions are a chance for participating teams to show off achievements in areas of artificial intelligence and robotics. The event was organized by Iranian RoboCup Regional Committee, Qazvin Islamic Azad University and Vice Presidential Office for Science and Technology, reported the event’s website.
Morteza Mousakhani, head of the RoboCup Iran Open Competitions committee, says 440 local teams and 38 foreign teams from 11 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, South Korea, Turkey, China, the Netherlands, Singapore and Germany, competed in this year’s contests.
At the opening ceremony last week, Iran’s Vice President for Science and Technology Sorena Sattari, called for a major revision of policy to help young robotics experts find jobs and outlets for their work.
“Iran’s industrial policies need to be overhauled so as to promote application of robots developed by the young generation,” he said.
Iranian teams have actively participated in global RoboCup events since 1998. The local contest was established as a way for Iranian teams to prepare for large-scale international contests.
The word RoboCup is a contraction of the competition’s full name, “Robot Soccer World Cup”, but there are many fields other than soccer in which teams face off.
When the RoboCup competitions were inaugurated in 1997, the original mission was to field a team of robots capable of winning against human soccer World Cup champions by 2050.
The Tehran competition was held in three leagues, the junior league for school students, the practical league for technologies with everyday impact and the university students league.
Qazvin Islamic Azad University’s MRL (Mechatronics Research Laboratory) became the champion of the competition by snatching the top spot in seven major leagues.
A team from Leipzig University of Applied Sciences won in the football standard league championship.
Junior League
The student section of the contest began last Wednesday with 193 teams participating in the tournament in seven leagues, including light-weight robots, CoSpace, junior soccer and junior rescue.
Mousakhani says there is a growth in quality and quantity of junior contestants. Last year merely, half of school student teams met the criteria to participate in the competition, while 75% of junior teams qualified for the 2018 contest.
Training courses were available for juniors throughout the three-day event.
University Students League
There were 132 university student teams participating in the competition in leagues, including minesweeping robots, industrial robots, rescue robots, mid- and small- size soccer robots, and standard platform robots.
There were also 60 teams taking part in the simulation competition in fields, including 2D and 3D soccer and rescue simulation virtual robot competition.
Qazvin’s MRL came first in the kid- and teen-size humanoid league, rescue robot, small-size soccer, home application robots, open door unmanned aerial vehicle, and industrial robots.
Other teams from Khajeh Nasir Toosi University of Technology, Amir Kabir University of Technology, University of Texas at Austin and Royan Sanat Institute also ranked among the top winners.
The local winners of the competition annually participate in the international RoboCup League in Montreal, Canada, and benefit from membership in Iran’s National Elites Foundation, an institute with the objective of recognizing and supporting Iran’s elite national talents.
Real-World Application
Mousakhani says all the robots used in the competition can be utilized in the country’s industries, adding that “these robots even have the capability to be active in security and defense areas.”
On the first day of the event, a firefighter robot developed by researchers at Qazvin Islamic Azad University was unveiled.
According to the producer, the calamity concerning the Plasco Building in January 2016, which led to the tragic death of firefighters trying to salvage the building from a fierce blaze, prompted the production of the firefighter robot.
The robot can climb uneven surfaces and has a rotating fire hose nozzle. If disconnected from the operator, it is programmed to return to its operational starting point.
The practical leagues included rescue robots, smart cars and firefighters.
