The human-shaped robot footballers made by Chinese universities are competing for the titles.

"Dribble! Shoot! Terrific!" The Sports Center of South China University of Technology (SCUT), Guangzhou, is filled with hubbubs when a special football championship kicks off here on Oct. 15th - the 2004 National Robot Football Championship.

The event, attracting 58 teams of robot footballers produced by 38 universities over the country, is said to be of the largest scale and at the highest level of its kind in China.

Though strange and a little clumsy, the "players" are able to dribble, tackle, dodge and shoot, etc. like human football players; amazingly, they are totally automatic.

The secret is that each of these intelligent "footballers" has a camera on it head, which transmits information collected from all directions to their "brains" - the decision-making system, according to Professor Minhua from SCUT.

Experts believe in the prediction that with the development of robot technology, robot footballers will be able to defeat the world's all-star human football team in the year 2005, source with Yangcheng Evening Newspaper releases.

The idea of robot football match was first promoted by a professor from Columbia University in 1993 as a challenging topic for the development of artificial intelligence and intelligent robot project. The competition of robot football in China began in 1998.

After this event, the robot football team of SCUT from Guangdong is invited to play in an international match in Korea at the end of this Oct..

Editor: Catherine

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