Call for Applications for Participation
RoboCup 2023 – RoboCup at Work
https://2023.robocup.org
Venue: Bordeaux, France
Tuesday, July 4th through Monday, July 10th, 2023
RoboCup at Work: Competing for the Factory of the Future
RoboCup at Work is a league of the RoboCup competition that replicates the use of robots in autonomous, industrial scenarios.
It aims to promote research and development that enables the use of innovative mobile robots with advanced manipulators for cutting-edge industrial applications. Such applications include complex tasks ranging from manufacturing, automation, and parts handling to general logistics, as well as interaction with human workers.
The RoboCup at Work league is characterized by an industrial environment. This consists of manipulation objects including nuts and bolts, arena elements such as shelves, bins, and platforms of different sizes, and networked automation devices like conveyor belts and drilling machines.
The actual competition tasks to be performed in the environment are defined in a set of so-called tests. Each test addresses various mobile manipulation capabilities such as grasping, transportation, precision placement, and visual serving. The complete rules of RoboCup@Work as well as further technical details are (will be) posted on the RoboCup@Work website (https://atwork.robocup.org).
Participation in the Competition
All teams that intend to participate in the competition have to perform the following steps:
- Submission of qualification materials including a Team Description Paper and a video of their robot performance. Details are below.
- Final registration (qualified teams only)
Qualification
The qualification process serves a dual purpose: It should allow the Technical Committee (aka TC) to assess the safety of the robots a team intends to bring to the competition, and it should allow ranking teams according to a set of evaluation criteria in order to select the most promising teams for a competition, if not all interested teams can be permitted. The TC will select the qualified teams according to the qualification materials provided by the teams.
The evaluation criteria will include:
- Team description paper
- Relevant scientific contributions/publications
- The professional quality of the robot and software
- Novelty of approach
- Relevance to industry
- Performance in previous competitions
- Contribution to RoboCup at Work league, e.g. by Organization of events and/or provision and sharing of knowledge
- The quality of the robot’s performance of a task (selected by the team) shown in a video
- Team website
Team Description Paper
The Team Description Paper (TDP) is a central element of the qualification process and has to be provided by each team as part of the qualification process. The TDP should at least contain the following information in the author/title section of the paper:
- Name of the team (title)
- Team members (authors), including the team leader
- Link to the team website
- Contact information
The body of the TDP should contain information on the following:
- the focus of research/research interest
- a description of the hardware, including an image of the robot(s)
- a description of the software, esp. the functional and software architectures
- innovative technology (if any)
- reusability of the system or parts thereof
- applicability and relevance to industrial tasks
- usage of components (software or hardware) developed by other RoboCup at Work teams
The team description paper should cover the technical and scientific approach in detail, while the team website should be designed for a broader audience. Both the website and the TDP have to be in English.
All TDPs must be written using the following template: https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/springer-lecture-notes-in-computer-science/kzwwpvhwnvfj#.WtR5Hy5ua71
Submission and Evaluation
All applications with the qualification material must be submitted by February 12th February 22nd, 2023 through the following online form:
https://forms.gle/19mWkrN2RUDTuKba9
Qualified teams will be tentatively announced by February 25th, 2023.
Important Links for RoboCup@Work League
- Official Website: https://atwork.robocup.org
- Discord: https://discord.gg/WaBHRdZq
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14158849/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/communities/1606361981937754115
- Mailing List: https://lists.robocup.org/mm/lists/rc-work.lists.robocup.org/