For the Innovations Parks at the show, one of our innovations will be on display at the Sport Park: SigmaBan, a humanoid robot programmed to play soccer autonomously, created and designed by the Rhoban team at the Bordeaux Computer Research Laboratory (LaBRI).
SigmaBan is a regular in the competition, having already taken part ten times. Today, it was one of the robots to win the Kid Size Humanoid league at the RoboCup 2023! Since its debut in the competition, the robot has evolved considerably, and can now move five times faster than in its first versions. It can now reach speeds of 35 centimetres per second - a relatively high speed for a robot of its size (around 60 centimetres high). The robot must also be able to stand on its own two feet, so as not to topple over with every shot or every hazard encountered in its environment - a real challenge for roboticists, since keeping a bipedal robot balanced remains a difficult problem.
To meet the many challenges SigmaBan faces in playing soccer, the Rhoban team is working on the design of the robot's mechanical architecture and actuation, its ability to perceive its environment, and the generation and control of its movements.
