SGI and RoboCup

RoboCup, supported by SGI Japan as a worldwide sponsor, is an international collaborative research project. Its ultimate goal is to develop a fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer team which beats human world champion team, and its primary purpose is to develop the technologies such as swift situation judgment, artificial intelligence, safe skin and muscles in colliding with humans. There are strong expectations from the companies in disaster relief, welfare, the Internet, ITS (Intelligence Transport System) fields,anticipating transferring the accumulated technological elements to the industry.

RoboCup is divided into the real robot league and the simulation league that enables to play games in the simulative field on the server. The latter requires the high-level technologies in terms of high-definition computer graphics, high performance and reliability, which are SGI's strong scopes. RoboCup Rescue, one of the pillars of RoboCup has started as simulation league, geared to improve the technologies that supports rescue activities on disaster sites with social contributions implications.

RoboCup Rescue aiming at practical use of comprehensive disaster relief system

The activities of RoboCup Rescue are becoming even more significant in considering research and development of comprehensive disaster relief simulation system and various research evaluation sessions in the form of tournament. In May 2000, International Rescue System Institute (President: Satoshi Tadokoro, Associate Prof., Kobe University), Non-Profit Organization (NPO), was established by uniting the activities of RoboCup Rescue and all kinds of activities of academic societies at home and abroad. SGI's state-of-the-art core technologies such as Visualization and Broadband are also fully utilized for this kind of research activities.

SGI's technologies supporting robot and satellite businesses

SGI's computer technologies have been involved in the robot business in the broad leading-edge areas. In fact, SGI's most recent computing technologies were implemented in developing Mars probing robot in 1997 to obtain the information of its surface. In the course of developing it, SGI's system first visualized the Mars surface and the probing robot by computer graphics, and then simulated all the expected movements on Mars. Even after the robot had actually been sent to the Mars, SGI's computer system commanded the probing robot approximately 6,000 km away and processed the images sent from it in real time.

These technologies are also utilized in the space development, such as satellite-related fields. For instance, Iconos, operational satellite, launched in September 1999, continues to send the super high-definition images to the ground station while orbiting around the Earth 14 times per day at 700km above. Once the ground station receives and saves the enormous amount of data from it, SGI's high performmance graphics system, Onyx(R), visualizes all the data in real time. It is Onyx's high-speed disc I/O and the broad bandwidth that enable to handle and visualize such enormous data like satellite images in real time.

SGI Japan's Disaster Relief System

In disaster relief system, it is essential to make an accurate and quick decision on rescue policy. The keys are to grasp the situation in an accessible location and to simulate the countermeasure operations that allow efficient decision-making analyses. SGI provides a comprehensive disaster relief system that transmits images sent from a rescue robot at the disaster site via satellite or fiber cable, combining with realistic 3D map data onto a large multi-screen system. By providing our visualization systems and its technologies,SGI Japan is aiming at further developing robot-related technologies accumulated in the RoboCup and RoboCup Rescue and putting the comprehensive disaster relief command/control center to practical use.

[ Contact：robot_rescue@sgi.co.jp ]