Robots are having a heyday in Germany. While one group has just completed a World Cup championship in Bremen, Germany, another is diligently patrolling Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, one of 12 venues hosting the World Cup soccer tournament currently under way in the country.
The RoboCup 2006 championship ended Sunday with Germany winning 11 of the three robot soccer categories. China came in second with nine medals, followed by Japan with six and Iran with five. Japan won the humanoid competition, with a kid-size robot from Osaka.
The RoboCup’s goal is to develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can play — and win — against a human World Cup champion team by 2050.
With RoboCup over, robot enthusiasts are now shifting their attention to another group of robots busy protecting the historical Berlin stadium, home to the Olympic Games in 1936 and host to a handful of matches for the 2006 World Cup soccer tournament.
Eleven moveable robots are patrolling the stadium area every night through July 9, when the final game of the World Cup soccer tournament takes place in the Berlin stadium.
The robots, built and operated by Robowatch Technologies GmbH in Berlin, are part of a contract that the F