A rare, intelligent humanoid robot soccer player, currently the most sophisticated of its kind in China, will participate in the Ninth FIRA Robot World Cup this October in South Korea.

The Federation of International Robot-soccer Association Cup will be held on October 27-31 in Busan of South Korea.

FIRA has had venues for its annual FIRA Robot World Cup in Australia, Brazil, China, France and South Korea since 1996.

The "bi-ped" robot, developed by the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, won a championship at the five-day Fifth National Robot Soccer Tournament and 2004 FIRA Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament, which concluded on Tuesday in Wuhan Engineering University in Central China's Hubei Province.

This robot, designed by the Robot-football Player Research Group of HIT, bears the same name of its mother institute.

"Although China has more than 10 years of history in bi-ped robot research history, the experiment remained unsuccessful," said Dr Hong Bingrong, a mentor at the Computer Science and Technology Department of HIT and also a renowned forerunner in the soccer robot field in China.

More than one year's hard work finally paid off. Headed by Dr Hong, the group eventually made great breakthroughs in the arithmetic of walking and kicking of bi-ped robots and therefore solved the problem of keeping robot's balance while moving. Thus "HIT" was created.

"HIT" is about half a meter high, and consists of 17 joints. It is connected by hundreds of bolts. With two digital information processors installed in the middle, "HIT" can walk steadily on flat surfaces as well as rugged ground.

(China Daily June 25, 2004)