THE quest to make robots ever more human-like blunders onwards. Soccer-playing robots are to be taught how to fall properly, to stop them from sustaining career-threatening injuries when they topple over (see 鈥淪occerbots learn to take a dive鈥�). That鈥檚 good news for bots, but maybe not such good news for robot soccer. You can鈥檛 help wondering whether this year鈥檚 RoboCup will see an outbreak of 鈥渟imulation鈥� 鈥� soccerbots deliberately falling over to gain an unfair advantage. If so, that would be another human attribute mastered: cheating.
Soccer robots take a dive
Teaching soccer-playing robots how to fall over is a recipe for skulduggery on the sports field
