RoboCup 2002

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 IPCconsisted 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.