RoboCup 2002, the 6th Robot World Cup Soccer and Rescue Competitions and Conference, took place during June 19–25, 2002, at the Fukuoka Dome (main venue) in Fukuoka, Japan. It was, by far, the RoboCup event with the largestnumberofregisteredparticipants(1004persons,distributedin188teams from 29 countries) and visitors (around 120,000 persons). As was done in its previous editions since 1997, the event included several robotic competitions and aninternationalsymposium.Thepapersandposterspresentedatthesymposium constitutethemainpartofthisbook.Leaguereportsinthe?nalsectiondescribe signi?cant advances in each league and the results. The symposium organizers received 76 submissions, among which 17 papers (22%) were accepted for oral presentation at the symposium (?rst section of the book), and 21 papers (29%) were accepted as posters (second section of the book). Most papers were evaluated by three reviewers each, chosen from the members of the International Program Committee (IPC). The IPC consisted of a balanced combination of regular RoboCup participants and researchers from outside this community. The reviewers worked hard to guarantee a fair review process – the result of their work was a high-quality symposium with very - teresting presentations.

This book constitutes the seventh official archival publication devoted to RoboCup. It documents the achievements presented at the 7th Robot World Cup Soccer and Rescue Competition and Conferences held in Padua, Italy, in July 2003. The 39 revised full papers and 35 revised poster papers presented together with an overview and roadmap for the RoboCup initiative and 3 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 125 symposium paper submissions. This book is mandatory reading for the rapidly growing RoboCup community as well as a valuable source of reference and inspiration for R&D professionals interested in robotics, distributed artificial intelligence, and multi-agent systems.

ThesearetheproceedingsoftheRoboCup2004Symposium,heldattheInstituto Superior T ́ ecnico, in Lisbon, Portugal in conjunction with the RoboCup c- petition. The papers presented here document the many innovations in robotics that result from RoboCup. A problem in any branch of science or engineering is how to devise tests that can provide objective comparisons between alt- native methods. In recent years, competitive engineering challenges have been established to motivate researchers to tackle di?cult problems while providing a framework for the comparison of results. RoboCup was one of the ?rst such competitions and has been a model for the organization of challenges foll- ing sound scienti?c principles. In addition to the competition, the associated symposium provides a forum for researchers to present refereed papers. But, for RoboCup, the symposium has the greater goal of encouraging the exchange of ideas between teams so that the competition, as a whole, progresses from year to year and strengthens its contribution to robotics. One hundred and eighteen papers were submitted to the Symposium. Each paper was reviewed by at least two international referees; 30 papers were - cepted for presentation at the Symposium as full papers and a further 38 were accepted for poster presentation. The quality of the Symposium could not be maintained without the support of the authors and the generous assistance of the referees.

This book constitutes the ninth official archival publication devoted to RoboCup, documenting presentations at the RoboCup 2005 International Symposium, held in Osaka, Japan, July 2005 alongside the RoboCup Competition. The book presents 34 revised full papers and 38 revised short papers together with two award-winning papers. This is a valuable source of reference and inspiration for those interested in robotics or distributed intelligence, and mandatory reading for the rapidly growing RoboCup community.

This book includes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 16th Annual RoboCup International Symposium, held in Mexico City, Mexico, in June 2012. The 24 revised papers presented together with nine champion team papers and one best paper award were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions. The papers present current research and educational activities within the fields of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence with a special focus to robot hardware and software, perception and action, robotic cognition and learning, multi-robot systems, human-robot interaction, education and edutainment, and applications.

The 12th annual RoboCup International Symposium was held during July 15–18, 2008 in conjunction with RoboCup 2008 Competitions and Demonstrations. The symposium represents the core meeting for the presentation and discussion of sci- tific contributions in diverse areas related to the main threads within RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue, RoboCup@Home and RoboCupJunior. Its scope encompassed, but was not restricted to, research and education activities within the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics. A fundamental aspect of RoboCup is promoting science and technology among young students and researchers, in addition to providing a forum for discussion and excitement about Robotics with practitioners from all over the world. Since its first edition in 1997 in Nagoya, the RoboCup Competitions and Symposium have attracted an increasing number of researchers and students from all the world and today it is a major event in robotics worldwide. Due to its interdisciplinary nature and the exploration of various and intimate c- nections of theory and practice across a wide spectrum of different fields, the sym- sium offered an excellent opportunity to introduce new techniques to various scientific disciplines. The experimental, interactive and benchmark character of the RoboCup initiative created the opportunity to present, learn and evaluate novel ideas and - proaches with significant potential. If promising, they are then rapidly adopted and field-tested by a large (and still strongly growing) community.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Modeling Decisions for Artificial Intelligence, MDAI 2004, held in Barcelona, Spain in August 2004. The 26 revised full papers presented together with 4 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 53 submissions. The papers are devoted to topics like models for information fusion, aggregation operators, model selection, fuzzy integrals, fuzzy sets, fuzzy multisets, neural learning, rule-based classification systems, fuzzy association rules, algorithmic learning, diagnosis, text categorization, unsupervised aggregation, the Choquet integral, group decision making, preference relations, vague knowledge processing, etc.

This book includes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 18th Annual RoboCup International Symposium, held in Joao Pessoa, Brazil, in July 2014.The 36 revised papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 66 submissions and include 11 champion-team papers, three special-track papers on open-source hardware and software, nine papers on the advancement of the RoboCup leagues track, and three best papers. The contributions present current research and educational activities in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence with a special focus on the interaction between robots and humans.