This article reports on the Sixth Robot World Cup Competition and Conference (RoboCup-2002) Fukuoka/Busan, which took place from 19 to 25 June in Fukuoka, Japan. It was the largest Robo- Cup since 1997 and held the first humanoid league competition in the world. Further, the first ROBOTREX (robot trade and exhibitions) was held with about 50 companies, universities, and institutes represented. To the best of our knowledge, this was the largest robotic event in history.

To overcome these limitations, we propose an algorithm, called the CONTRACTING CURVE DENSITY (CCD) algorithm, for fitting parametric curves to image data. The method neither assumes object-specific color distributions, or specific edge profiles, nor does it need threshold parameters. To separate adjacent regions, we use local criteria that are based on local image statistics. We apply the method to the problem of localizing the ball and show that the CCD algorithm reliably localizes the ball even in the presence of heavily changing illumination, strong clutter, specularity, partial occlusion, and texture.

This article reports on an extensive survey and analysis of research work related to machine learning as it applies to automated planning over the past 30 years. Major research contributions are broadly characterized by learning method and then descriptive subcategories. Survey results reveal learning techniques that have extensively been applied and a number that have received scant attention. We extend the survey analysis to suggest promising avenues for future research in learning based on both previous experience and current needs in the planning community.

The Twenty-Fifth Annual German Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI- 2002) was held 16 to 20 September 2003 in Aachen (Aix-La-Chapelle), Germany. KI is the main German national conference in AI, but it addresses an international audience by adopting English as the conference language and having the proceedings published in the Springer Lecture Notes in AI series.

During the 2002 European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI-02) was introduced the Starting Artificial Intelligence Researchers Symposium STAIRS), the first-ever international symposium specifically aimed at Ph.D. students in AI. The outcome was a thorough, high-quality, and successful event, with all the features one usually finds in the best international conferences: large international committees, comprehensive coverage, published proceedings, renowned speakers and panelists, subsidized awards, and an exciting social program. Considering the numerous benefits gained by the young researchers through such a forum, no doubt STAIRS will become a regular and well-established biennial event.

This article summarizes 16 agent strategies that were designed for the 2002 Trading Agent Competition. Agent architects use numerous general-purpose AI techniques, including machine learning, planning, partially observable Markov decision processes, Monte Carlo simulations, and multiagent systems. Ultimately, the most successful agents were primarily heuristic based and domain specific.

Robots in the Robot Host competition, part of the Eighteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2002) Mobile Robot Competition faced two challenges: (1) a serving task that was similar to the Hors d'Oeuvres, Anyone? Both tasks required moving carefully among people, politely offering them information or hors d'oeuvres, recognizing when the people are making a request, and answering the request.

The Eighteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2002) Robot Challenge is part of an annual series of robot challenges and competitions. It is intended to promote the development of robot systems that interact intelligently with humans in natural environments. The Challenge task calls for a robot to attend the AAAI conference, which includes registering for the conference and giving a talk about itself. In this article, we review the task requirements, introduce the robots that participated at AAAI-2002 and describe the strengths and weaknesses of their performance.

The AAAI-2002 Robot Exhibition offered robotics researchers a venue for live demonstrations of their current projects. Researchers ranging from undergraduates working on their own to large multilab groups demonstrated robots that performed tasks ranging from improvisational comedy to urban search and rescue. This article describes their entries.