Prepared by the RoboCup-2004 Four-legged Robot League Committee:
Organizing Committees 
Thomas Roefer (Organizing Chair), University of Bremen, Germany
Alessandro Saffiotti , Orebro University, Sweden
Dan Lee, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Local Organizing Chair
Antonio Paulo Moreira , Universidade do Porto, Portugal

Technical Commitetes
Claude Sammut, University of New South Wales, Australia
Alessandro Saffiotti , Orebro University, Sweden
Will Uther, University of New South Wales, Australia
Scott Lenser, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Dieter Fox, University of Washington, USA
Thomas Roefer, University of Bremen, Germany
Masahiro Fujita, Sony Corporation, Japan

1. Objectives

One of the ultimate dreams in robotics is to create life-like robotics systems, such as humanoid robots and animal-like legged robots. We chose to build a quadruped robot because we believe that quadruped robots have major potential for future robotics, including entertainment applications for personal robots. However, a number of challenges exist before any such robot can be fielded in the real world. Robots have to be reasonably intelligent, maintain a certain level of agility, and be able to engage in some collaborative behaviors. RoboCup is an ideal challenge to foster robotics technologies for small personal and mobile robotics systems. Through the research and competition in this league, we believe technology will be developed that will improve robot performance not only in entertainment but also non-entertainment applications such as rescue robots and other dangerous jobs currently peformed by humans, and that robots will perform these tasks in the future by working together. 

2. Participation in our league

RoboCup is an initiative to provide a research platform to integrate Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. RoboCup includes competitions and emphasizes the underlying research through a RoboCup symposium. 

This is a call for applications to participate in RoboCup-2004 using the Sony entertainment robot, AIBO ERS-210(A)/black or white model or ERS-7 (white only) with OPEN-R SDK. Participation in RoboCup 2004 requires the submission of an application describing the research underlying the team. 

The competition results are used in next year's qualification to participate in Four-Legged Robot League games or technical challenges. Teams are evaluated on their efforts and contribution to RoboCup 2004 in the qualification for 2005 alongside newly applied teams. Then qualified teams are eligible for participation in the next Four-Legged Robot League competition. Rules for 2004 and necessary information will appear on our website as soon as it has been reviewed. The rules from previous years are available at the same site.
http://www.openr.org/robocup/index.html

Those interested in participating are encouraged to acquire further information about RoboCup and about the Sony four-legged robots from the RoboCup web page, http://www.robocup.org/, as well as from the technical publications listed below. 

3. Guidelines for the Application Submission

Applications need to include: 
1. Intent to participate
2. Application for Qualification - Team Information -
3. Technical Report - Clear statement of research interests and results -
4. Pointers to relevant publications, if any 
5. Video submission (putting on your server)
6. Travel support commitment for the team participation in RoboCup 2004
        Travel Support Form 2004  [pdf] [MS Word] [text]  Now available!

The applications will be evaluated by the League Technical Committees based on the strength of the qualifications of the team and the proposed approach. The competence demonstrated in local competitions or movie submissions will provide supplementary information for the committees.

Applications are to be submitted by email with a maximum of 5 pages to the RoboCup-2004 Sony Four-legged Robot Technical Committee, legged_tech@openr.org
The deadline for initial intent to participate is January 15, 2004. The final deadline to submit the applications is March 1, 2004. The final decisions will be made in March 15, 2004.

Local Open Competitions 2004

German OPEN : April 2-4, Paderborn
Japan OPEN : May 1-4, Osaka
American OPEN : April 24 - 27, New Orleans
Australian OPEN : April, Sydney

Technical Publications

Hiroaki Kitano, Masahiro Fujita, Stephane Zrehen , and Koji Kageyama, "Sony Legged Robot for RoboCup Challenge", In Proceedings of the IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION, IEEE, 1998, pp.2605-2612 

Manuela Veloso, William Uther, Masahiro Fujita, Minoru Asada, and Hiroaki Kitano, "Playing Soccer with Legged Robot", In Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT ROBOTS AND SYSTEMS, 1998, pp.437-442 

The official website for Sony Robot Entertainment 
http://www.aibo.com/

To get Sony Four-Legged robots, AIBO robot, please ask us.
- USA, Japan, Europe, others

Get OPEN-R SDK, Software Development Kit, register now.
http://openr.aibo.com/
 
Questions
- Technical Issue or Application contact: ask The League Technical Committees
- General questions : Legged info