RoboCup 2001

R oboCup-2001, the fifth international RoboCup competition and conference, was held for the first time in the United States, following RoboCup-2000 in Melbourne, RoboCup-1999 in Stockholm, RoboCup1998 in Paris, and RoboCup-1997 in Osaka. RoboCup is a research-oriented initiative that pioneered the field of multirobot research starting in 1996 [1]. In those days, most robotics research was focused on single-robot issues. RoboCup opened a new horizon for multirobot research by focusing on teams of robots facing other teams of robots to accomplish specific goals. This challenging objective offers a broad and rich set of research and development questions; to wit, the construction of mechanically sound and robust robots, real-time effective perception algorithms, and dynamic behavior-based approaches to support teamwork.