3 robots and a soccer team

Meet Android FC, a three-robot soccer team, developed by the scientists of the School of Infomatics at the University of Edinburgh.

The teal consists of a two-foot-high (0.6m) striker, defender and goalkeeper.

The robots are fully autonomous and have embedded processors that enable them to make sense of the surroundings and react to the movements of other players.

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The robots play the the game using artificial intelligence. The only human allowed on the pitch after the toss is the referee.

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Edinburgh university's School of Infomatics hope their squad will eventually reach the humanoid finals in Turkey in 2011.

The international competition was founded in 1997. Last year it attracted 407 teams from 43 different countries.

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The ultimate goal of the RoboCup project is to develop a team of humanoid robots by 2050 that can play and win against the human world champion football team.

Sethu Vijayakumar, who helped build the robots, said: "RoboCup is a key challenge in robotics research."

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The team of scientists has been working on the project since autumn 2009.

They will display the squad's silicon skills at the Edinburgh International Science Festival this weekend.

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