This year's RoboCup, the soccer world cup for intelligent robots, has taken place from 29 June - 5 July in Graz, Austria. Among the competitors were two teams whose robots featured intelligent cameras from Vision Components – the Tech United team from Eindhoven University, Netherlands and the Rockys Senior from Rockenhausen, Germany.
Tech United finished second in the Middle Size League. Their robot soccer players are equipped with VC 4458-type 1GHz cameras, which are installed to 'look up' at an angle, thus providing a 360° field of vision. Thanks to the smart cameras, the robots never lose track of the ball. Intelligent algorithms ensure that game tactics are implemented – a strategy that carried the team into the finals.
The students making up the Rockys Senior team won third place in the Soccer A Secondary category of the RoboCup Junior competition, which consists of soccer, dance and rescue contests. In this case, the image processing tasks were performed by the flexible, easy-to-integrate VCSBC4016C board cameras.
