Overview of RoboCup-98

The Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences (RoboCup) are a series of competitions and events designed to promote the full integration of Al and robotics research. Following the first RoboCup, held in Nagoya, Japan, in 1 997, RoboCup-98 was held in Paris from 2-9 July, overlapping with the real World Cup soccer competition. RoboCup-98 included competitions in three lea gues: (1) the simulation league, (2) the real robot small-size league, and (3) the real robot middle-size league. Champion teams were CMUNITED-98 in b oth the simulation and the real robot small-size leagues and CS-FREIBURG (F reiburg, Germany) in the real robot middle-size league. RoboCup-98 also inc luded a Scientific Challenge Award, which war given to three research group s for their simultaneous development of fully automatic commentator systems for the RoboCup simulator league. Over 15,000 spectators watched the games , and 120 international media provided worldwide coverage of the competitio n.