As many as 3,000 participants from more than 40 countries will compete in the RoboCup world championship, where autonomous robots will be pitted against each other and given complex problems to solve. In addition to footballing robots, visitors can look forward to robots designed to search autonomously for survivors in disaster zones or perform a variety of tasks in an apartment in interaction with human beings.
In the RoboCupJunior, the RoboCup competition for students aged 20 or younger, robots will be given challenges such as dancing to music and negotiating an obstacle course besides playing football. The multi-day competitions will be accompanied by a congress on new scientific advances in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics.
The application to host the RoboCup was sponsored by the Federal Government, the State of Saxony and the City of Leipzig. "Leipzig enjoys an excellent reputation as a centre of science," said Burkhard Jung, Lord Mayor of the City of Leipzig. "People have always been coming here to present innovations, and to exchange information and knowledge. The RoboCup world championship combines science, technology and sport, and spectators will be amazed by what they see. And it doesn't matter if the robots score seven goals or just one."