07.06.2010
Automated goalkeeper

FIFA David - the giant football boot (©IAS/University of Stuttgart)

The University of Stuttgart has developed an automated football player in the shape of a giant football boot which can shoot goals with even more precision than Ronaldo, Ballack or the legendary Gerd Müller. FIFA David can kick balls to hit any pre-selected point between the goalposts with absolute accuracy and at a speed of up to 130 km/h from any position on the pitch. The machine can also give the ball a left or right spin of up to 20 rotations a second to send the ball curving into the goal.

The automated goalkeeper was built in six subsystems by students at the Institute for Automation and Software Engineering (IAS) at the University of Stuttgart in collaboration with the Institute of Construction and Technical Design (IKDT). In the framework of their dissertations and degree theses, the students developed a system for shooting the ball using two parallel strips which rotate at different speeds to capture, accelerate and spin the ball. The shooting system can be rotated on three axes to aim at its goal. The central control calculates the shooting parameters and the ballistic curve. FIFA David's human operator uses a three-dimensional image of the pitch to determine the player's shoot position, the area aimed at in the goal, the speed at which the ball will travel and the trick the automated player will use to curl the ball around a wall of defending players. A laser distance sensor recognises the goal posts to enable David to be positioned as flexibly as possible; the striker's position is then calculated for the computer using triangulation (a method of measuring distance with light). The system has its own reliability concept in which a laser scanner searches for any potential obstacles along the ballistic curve and which stops the ball automatically.

The University of Stuttgart has developed the automated striker as a potent challenger to their equally automatic goalie "GOALIAS" who, in the guise of a "penalty shot killer", proved to be an absolute crowd puller at the Stuttgart "IdeenPark 2008" Exhibition. "GOALIAS" managed to stop 90 per cent of the 15,000 penalty shots played against him by exhibition visitors. But GOALIAS has now met his match and the next step is for both machines to fine-tune their abilities even more. 

All in all, both automated footballers are not only visible evidence of the outstanding education and training provided by the University of Stuttgart, they also do an excellent job in showing off some of the most attractive sides of the engineering and automation technology professions.