Cooperative Robotics In Robocup Soccer Is Not Just Playing a Game

Robocup is one of the largest scientific robotic initiatives. It is organized in different leagues, some of which include teams of autonomous robots that have to cooperate to win a soccer game against an opponent team. In this paper, we consider issues such as: cooperative sensing, cooperative behavior, and team strategy. We discuss some of the ways Robocup teams have faced these issues, and envision the application of these techniques in industrial and service robotics, nowadays and in a next future. We show how Robocup can be considered as a challenging and engaging environment, able to develop techniques than can be used to face real world applications, too.