RoboCup 2002: Robot Soccer World Cup VI

Book excerpt: RoboCup 2002, the 6th Robot World Cup Soccer and Rescue Competitions and Conference, took place during June 19–25, 2002, at the Fukuoka Dome (main venue) in Fukuoka, Japan. It was, by far, the RoboCup event with the largestnumberofregisteredparticipants(1004persons,distributedin188teams from 29 countries) and visitors (around 120,000 persons). As was done in its previous editions since 1997, the event included several robotic competitions and aninternationalsymposium.Thepapersandposterspresentedatthesymposium constitutethemainpartofthisbook.Leaguereportsinthe?nalsectiondescribe signi?cant advances in each league and the results. The symposium organizers received 76 submissions, among which 17 papers (22%) were accepted for oral presentation at the symposium (?rst section of the book), and 21 papers (29%) were accepted as posters (second section of the book). Most papers were evaluated by three reviewers each, chosen from the members of the International Program Committee (IPC). The IPC consisted of a balanced combination of regular RoboCup participants and researchers from outside this community. The reviewers worked hard to guarantee a fair review process – the result of their work was a high-quality symposium with very - teresting presentations.