Directed by Professor Peter Stone, UT Austin Villa, a computer science student team has achieved two 2012 Robot Soccer World Cup division championships at RoboCup 2012 in Mexico City last week.
University of Texas at Austin team wins robot soccer world championships in 2 divisions
The 1997-established annual tournament has promoted innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics research, which is considered to be the massive robotics and artificial intelligence event in the world.
With recreational features, the AI research will contribute to creating improved bomb-searching robots, autonomous cars, self-healing, and smart computers. AI agents can efficiently handle business supply chains when compared to humans.
UT Austin Villa retained its 2011 3D Simulation League title with artificially intelligent robots competing in simulated soccer games.
Marking a unique success, the Texas team achieved RoboCupSoccer Standard Platform League (SPL) competition as well. This competition represents one of the chief profile leagues at RoboCup.
RoboCupSoccer SPL includes teams that employ fully autonomous, humanoid Nao robots. Due to the standardized feature of robots, the teams can target on software development and programming of robots with intellectual ability to "think" and play the game.
The Texas SPL team succeeded its first round robin games and quarterfinal. Each achieved a 4-goal margin, and by winning a nail-biter in the semifinals, it advanced to compete against the Germany-based University of Bremen. The Texas team won an early 2-0 lead in the first half of the championship game, triumphing by a final score of 4-2.