Established in 2003, Team Osaka debuted at RoboCup 2004 with VisiON, which won them the Humanoid League’s cup.
VisiON’s distinctive omni-directional camera inside its head allows it to see its surroundings in 360 degrees, meaning it doesn’t have to turn its head to locate the soccer ball. Team Osaka has competed and won several years, using a combination of VisiON robots and larger bipedal humanoids in the other leagues. VisiON stood 38cm tall and weighed 2.4kg.
There are different humanoid leagues based on the size of the robots competing; VisiON ranked in the Kid Size league (the smallest). Like the 4-legged Aibo league, the humanoids must compete fully autonomously, using cameras to determine the location of the ball, opponents, and the goal. The winning team is determined by the overall score in a variety of tests, such as penalty shots and the ability to navigate independently, along with 2 on 2 soccer games. Typically one of the two robots serves as the goalie.
Up until the humanoid standard league was formed in late 2008 (using Aldebaran Robotics’ NAO as the standard platform), all of the competing humanoid robots have been designed and built from the ground up by the competing teams. Matches are inherently imbalanced, but they allow each team to push themselves and the technology to the limit.
Team Osaka is made up of various organizations including companies and universities: Osaka City, Vstone Co. Ltd., Osaka University Intelligent Robotics Lab, Systec Akazawa, ROBO-GARAGE, and ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communications Lab.
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