RESEARCH-PROGRAM OF ROBOCUP

RoboCup, Robot World Cup, is an international research initiative invo lving over 20 countries and researchers from various fields surroundin g artificial intelligence and robotics. This introductory article desc ribes research programs involved in RoboCup. The goal of RoboCup is to establish a scheme of long-range research, and a series of short-rang e research goals that essentially converges into the grand challenge a s well as creating numerous spin-off technologies. The range of resear ch areas spans from robot hardware design, software and multiagent pro gramming, to natural language systems and education. This article desc ribes how these efforts can be coordinated as an integrative research initiative.