14 DAY TRIAL // RoboCup 2007 is probably the most significant robotic competition in the world. This year, this prestigious competition is held in Atlanta during July 01-07. This would be the eleventh such event and one of the special aspects related to it would be the fact that now there will be at least two Linux-based designs.
There has been said that some of the competing teams had their robots built on top of Sony's AIBO (artificial intelligence bot) platform, with a dog-shaped design and an open API (application programming interface). Since AIBO is no longer supported by Sony, there are rumors that some of the competitors who have bet on it will came now with their own designs, among which definitely some Linux-based ones.
One of these replacements is Der neue Roboter, similar to AIBO in shape, but much larger, measuring 40 x 30 x 25cm and weighing almost 2.5 kilos. Der neue Roboter's configuration takes in a 500MHz AMD Geode LX800 processor, a VGA (640 x 480) camera said to capture video at 90 fps, WLAN, four buttons, and a mini-display and it is powered by a lithium-ion polymer battery.
The other Linux based robot, called Nao, comes from Aldebaran and it has been under development for 2 years. It also comes with a software collection from the open source Universal Real-time Behavior Interface (URBI) project.
You can find more details about the Linux powered robots and the RoboCup competition here and also on target="_blank">Robocup's website.. There is also the RoboCup Symposium held in conjunction with the competition, immediately after the Competitions and Demonstrations. The Symposium represents the core meeting for the presentation and discussion of scientific contributions in diverse areas related to the three main threads within RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue and RoboCupJunior.