- RoboCup-athome - lists.robocup.org

[@Home] 2023 Rulebook Draft
by Mauricio Matamoros 21 Jan '23

21 Jan '23

Dear all, Please find attached the latest draft of the 2023 RoboCup@Home Rulebook. The rulebook is also available in the @Home website <https://athome.robocup.org/rules/> and here <https://athome.robocup.org/wp-content/uploads/2023_rulebook_draft.pdf>. The format of the competition has changed from previous years. During Stage I competitors will test their robots in all 5 predefined tests. The top 50% will advance to Stage II and be challenged with 4 tests. The top performers will advance to the finals where the victor will be elected. Unlike former years, all tests have a fixed schedule and teams have a single try with a restart. With kind regards, and looking forward to see you give your best in the arena, Mauricio Matamoros In behalf of the RoboCup@Home TC

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Rulebook changes 2023
by Dooren, Peter van 21 Jan '23

21 Jan '23

Dear Robocup teams, The TC has been in discussion for a few months now on the rulebook for Robocup 2023. We have decided to change the format of the competition. In previous years teams were allowed to choose which challenges they participated in in a given timeslot. This year we will revert to the format of 2017 where we have set challenges in each timeslot. This means some challenges will no longer be part of the league. We understand that this is a major change so below we will provide our reasoning. Having teams choose their own challenges meant that teams could focus on their own strengths. However over the past couple of years we noticed some drawbacks to this format as well. Teams would choose the challenges where it was easiest to score points and challenges that were difficult but very scientifically interesting would not be chosen as they were too risky. Furthermore it became hard to compare the performance of teams as extra emphasis had to be placed on making sure the points that could be scored had to be ‘balanced’ across challenges. This was already a difficult task but especially when teams can choose their challenges it makes the competition a game of ‘who can score the most points’ rather than ‘whose robot is the best’. With the new format we hope to see teams participate in the same challenges. This makes it easier to align “scoring points” and “the robot being the best”, allowing teams to focus on making the best robot rather than what scores the most points. The challenges that will be part of the Robocup 2023 tournament: 1. Carry my luggage 2. Receptionist 3. Storing groceries 4. Serve breakfast 5. GPSR 6. Clean the table 7. Restaurant 8. Stickler for the rules 9. EGPSR The TC may make some more minor changes to these challenges and the final rulebook will be published on March 31st. Kind regards, the Technical Commission

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[@Home2022] SECOND Call for Participation
by Mauricio Matamoros 13 Jan '23

13 Jan '23

Online version: https://athome.robocup.org/2023-cfp2-all/ Apologies for duplicates ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Second Call for Participation* RoboCup@Home 2023 (DSPL · OPL · SSPL) July 6th–11th 2023 (Bordeaux, France) https://2023.robocup.org https://athome.robocup.org/ https://github.com/RoboCupAtHome/RuleBook RoboCup is an international scientific initiative with the goal to advance the state of the art of intelligent robots through competitions (RoboCup@Home, RoboCup Soccer, RoboCup Rescue, RoboCup@Work and RoboCup Junior). The RoboCup@Home league aims to develop service and assistive robot technology with high relevance for future personal domestic applications. It is the largest international annual competition for autonomous service robots and is part of the RoboCup initiative. A set of benchmark tests is used to evaluate the robots' abilities and performance in a realistic home environment setting. Focus lies on the following domains but is not limited to: Human-Robot-Interaction and Cooperation, Navigation and Mapping in dynamic environments, Computer Vision and Object Recognition under natural light conditions, Object Manipulation, Adaptive Behaviors, Behavior Integration, Ambient Intelligence, Standardization and System Integration. This page describes the preregistration and qualification procedure for RoboCup@Home 2023, second term. Important dates: Jan. 9, 2023 Publication of the Second Call for Participation Feb. 12, 2023 Deadline for submission of qualification material. (Team Description Paper, Team Video, Team Website). Mar. 12, 2023 Qualification announcement The qualification procedure consists of a single step: Step 1) Qualification Material Submission (mandatory) The team ***MUST*** send an email to the Organizing Committee (rc-home-oc[at]lists.robocup.org) to participate in the qualification process for the RoboCup@Home 2023 event. Please fill in the following information: Team Name: League: [ DSPL | OPL | SSPL ] Country: Affiliation: Team Leader Name: Contact information (E-mail): Rank in local tournaments: Link to a team video: Link to a team web site devoted to their efforts: Team Description Paper (TDP) attached to the email based on the official template. The e-mail subject should be: [@Home2023-Qualification] (YourTeamName) Considerations: * Only one platform can be specified per team. * Only one team leader can be specified per team. * Only one team video url can be specified per team. * Only one contact email can be specified per team. * All the publications and software to be evaluated for qualification ***MUST*** be in the team's website. * The email must be encoded in UTF-8 using only the ISO-8859-1 character set. * Emails with attachments over 8MB bounce automatically. *IMPORTANT:* Teams that didn't obtain qualification during the first CFP are allowed to submit their improved materials, addressing the comments from the reviewers. /***** Deadline: Sunday, February 12, 2023 23:59 GMT ******/ Instructions for the Qualification Material Instructions for the Team Video: In order to proof a running hardware, each team has to provide a qualification video. As a minimum requirement for qualification, the video must show the robot(s) successfully solving a task involving the integration of at least 5 different abilities, such as: environmental reasoning, high-level task planning, human-robot interaction, localization, manipulation, object recognition, people recognition, etc. Is strongly advised to show at least one Stage 2 test of the current or last year's rulebook. *Remarks:* * The shown task execution must look continuous, smooth, and robust. * When speeding-up video, the speed factor must be indicated. * The language spoken and shown in the video must be English. When using any other languages, translations must be included. * We strongly suggest upload videos to Youtube. * Videos sent will be uploaded/displayed in the league's youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChkdCpT0xrFMMt-_N8wSVew/playlists" <http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChkdCpT0xrFMMt-_N8wSVew/playlists> * *Standard Platforms Only:* Teams must use the standard robot in their Team Video. *Copyright note:*When sending videos for qualification, teams implicitly grant permission to RoboCup @Home and the RoboCup Federation to copy, modify, distribute, upload, publish, and use the multimedia material to promote the event and the league at convenience. Instructions for the TDP The TDP is an 8-pages long scientific paper, detailing information on the technical and scientific approach of the team's research, while including also the following: * TDP o Group's research focus and interests. o Innovative technology and scientific contribution + Please specify when your research is being used by other teams or research groups + Please specify when you are using software from other teams o Brief, general description of the system when solving a [domestic] task (applicability in the real world) + The impact of your research must be clearly visible o Maximum length is *8 pages* (including figures and citations) * Annex o Photo(s) of the robot o Brief, compact list of the 3rd party robot's software (e.g. include MoveIt/YOLO) o Brief, compact description of all external computing devices, if any o Brief, compact description of the robot's hardware (OPL Only) o Please mark with an asterisk home-made software solutions o Annex should be appended after the References o There is no page limit for annex, but a maximum of one page is strongly encouraged * TDP length is *****8 pages + annex***** (any submissions over this length will be disqualified). * *DSPL and SSPL:* The robot depicted in the TDP or Team Video must be the league's standard one. For the TDP, please use the Springer LNAI format <http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0> used in the RoboCup Symposium submissions and limit yourself to 8 pages without altering margins or spacing (including references but excluding the annex). You may download a template for the TDP from here <https://github.com/RoboCupAtHome/TDPTemplate>. *Remark: *The language for the TDP, its graphics, tables, images, and all additional content must be English. Content in other languages must be translated. *Copyright note:*All TDPs sent for qualification may be made publicly available in the RoboCup @Home Wiki for further reference. On submitting, teams implicitly grant permission to RoboCup @Home and the RoboCup Federation to copy, distribute, upload, publish, and use the manuscript to promote the event and the league at convenience. ***** Exceeding the number of pages will automatically void your application *****. Instructions for the Web site While the TDP goes into detail about the technical and scientific approach of the team's research, the website should be designed for a broader audience, including: * Photos of the robot(s) * Videos of the robot(s) * Description of the approaches and information on scientific achievements * Relevant publications (last 5 years, preferably available to download) * Link to repositories with software for the community * Team members * Previous participation in RoboCup * Participation and rankings in local RoboCup tournaments *Remark: *No IP addresses will be accepted as website. *Remark: *Only documented active software repositories are considered as contributions to the league. It must be clear and straightforward to other teams how to use your software. Qualification and evaluation criteria: In this Second Call for Participation, all open participation slots will be assigned. In order to qualify, a team must meet the minimum selection requirements approved by the Executive Committee. However, meeting the minimum requirements won't automatically grant a participation slot. Only the top teams meeting the selection criterion will qualify for participation. The number of open participation slots varies per league with a saturation number of 12 teams per league Qualification materials will be judged by the following criteria: * Team description paper (clarity, scientific contributions, re-usability by the league, applicability in real world) * Performance in local tournaments and previous competitions. * Qualification Video (number of demonstrated abilities, integration, difficulty of the task, applicability in real world) * Website (multimedia, publications from last 5 years, downloadable content, open-source software and other contributions) * Relevant Scientific contribution/publications (downloadable papers and open-source software) * Novelty of approach (what you do is new for @Home) We encourage teams to produce self-explicative videos for a general audience where complex tasks are solved. For Team Description Papers focus on the scientific contribution and avoid brief descriptions of the overall system. With kind regards, and looking forward to see your team in Bordeaux, The 2023 RoboCup@Home Organizing and Technical Committees

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[@Home2022] SECOND Call for Participation
by Mauricio Matamoros 12 Jan '23

12 Jan '23

Online Version: https://athome.robocup.org/2023-cfp2-all/ Apologies for duplicates. -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- Second Call for Participation ============================== RoboCup@Home 2023 (DSPL · OPL · SSPL) July 6th–11th 2023 (Bordeaux, France) https://2023.robocup.org https://athome.robocup.org/ https://github.com/RoboCupAtHome/RuleBook RoboCup is an international scientific initiative with the goal to advance the state of the art of intelligent robots through competitions (RoboCup@Home, RoboCup Soccer, RoboCup Rescue, RoboCup@Work and RoboCup Junior). The RoboCup@Home league aims to develop service and assistive robot technology with high relevance for future personal domestic applications. It is the largest international annual competition for autonomous service robots and is part of the RoboCup initiative. A set of benchmark tests is used to evaluate the robots’ abilities and performance in a realistic home environment setting. Focus lies on the following domains but is not limited to: Human-Robot-Interaction and Cooperation, Navigation and Mapping in dynamic environments, Computer Vision and Object Recognition under natural light condi- tions, Object Manipulation, Adaptive Behaviors, Behavior Integra- tion, Ambient Intelligence, Standardization and System Integration. -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- This page describes the preregistration and qualification procedure for RoboCup@Home 2023, second term. Important dates: Jan. 9, 2023 Publication of the Second Call for Participation Feb. 12, 2023 Deadline for submission of qualification material. (Team Description Paper, Team Video, Team Website). Mar. 12, 2023 Qualification announcement The qualification procedure consists of a single step: Step 1) Qualification Material Submission (mandatory) ===================================================== The team ***MUST*** send an email to the Organizing Committee (rc-home-oc[at]lists.robocup.org) to participate in the qualification process for the RoboCup@Home 2023 event. Please fill in the following information: Team Name: League: [ DSPL | OPL | SSPL ] Country: Affiliation: Team Leader Name: Contact information (E-mail): Rank in local tournaments: Link to a team video: Link to a team web site devoted to their efforts: The Team Description Paper (TDP) shall be attached to the email and be based on the official template. Please mind the 8MB limit of the mailing list. Teams are allowed to provide an alternate download link to their hi-quality TDP. The e-mail subject should be: [@Home2023-Qualification](YourTeamName) Considerations: — Only one platform can be specified per team. — Only one team leader can be specified per team. — Only one team video url can be specified per team. — Only one contact email can be specified per team. — All the publications and software to be evaluated for qualification ***MUST*** be in the team’s website. — The email must be encoded in UTF-8 using only the ISO-8859-1 character set. — Emails with attachments over 8MB bounce automatically. IMPORTANT: Teams that didn’t obtain qualification during the first CFP are allowed to submit their improved materials, addressing the comments from the reviewers. **** Deadline: Sunday, February 12, 2023 23:59 GMT ***** Instructions for the Qualification Material =========================================== Instructions for the Team Video: -------------------------------- In order to proof a running hardware, each team has to provide a qualification video. As a minimum requirement for qualification, the video must show the robot(s) successfully solving a task involving the integration of at least 5 different abilities, such as: environmental reasoning, high-level task planning, human-robot interaction, localization, manipulation, object recognition, people recognition, etc. Is strongly advised to show at least one Stage 2 test of the current or last year’s rulebook. Remarks: — The task executed must look continuous, smooth, and robust. — When speeding-up video, the speed factor must be indicated. — The language spoken and shown in the video must be English. If any other languages are used, translations must be included. — We strongly suggest upload videos to Youtube. — Videos sent will be uploaded/displayed in the league’s youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChkdCpT0xrFMMt-_N8wSVew/playlists” — Standard Platforms Only: Teams must use the standard robot in their Team Video. Copyright note:When sending videos for qualification, teams implicit- ly grant permission to RoboCup @Home and the RoboCup Federation to copy, modify, distribute, upload, publish, and use the multimedia ma- terial to promote the event and the league at convenience. Instructions for the TDP ------------------------ The TDP is an 8-pages long scientific paper, detailing information on the technical and scientific approach of the team’s research, while including also the following: — TDP + Group’s research focus and interests. + Innovative technology and scientific contribution § Please specify when your research is being used by other teams or research groups § Please specify when you are using software from other teams + Brief, general description of the system when solving a [domestic] task (applicability in the real world) The impact of your research must be clearly visible + Maximum length is 8 pages (including figures and citations) — Annex + Photo(s) of the robot + Brief, compact list of the 3rd party robot’s software (e.g. include MoveIt/YOLO) + Brief, compact description of all external computing devices, if any + Brief, compact description of the robot’s hardware (OPL Only) + Please mark with an asterisk home-made software solutions + Annex should be appended after the References + There is no page limit for annex, but a maximum of one page is strongly encouraged — TDP length is ****8 pages + annex**** (any submissions over this length will be disqualified). — DSPL and SSPL: The robot depicted in the TDP or Team Video must be the league’s standard one. For the TDP, please use the Springer LNAI format used in the RoboCup Symposium submissions and limit yourself to 8 pages without altering margins or spacing (including references but excluding the annex). You may download a template for the TDP from here. Remark: The language for the TDP, its graphics, tables, images, and all additional content must be English. Content in other languages must be translated. Copyright note:All TDPs sent for qualification may be made publicly available in the RoboCup @Home Wiki for further reference. On submitting, teams implicitly grant permission to RoboCup @Home and the RoboCup Federation to copy, distribute, upload, publish, and use the manuscript to promote the event and the league at convenience. ***** Exceeding 8 pages automatically voids your application ***** Instructions for the Web site ----------------------------- While the TDP goes into detail about the technical and scientific approach of the team’s research, the website should be designed for a broader audience, including: — Photos of the robot(s) — Videos of the robot(s) — Description of the approaches and information on scientific achievements — Relevant publications (last 5 years, preferably available to download) — Link to repositories with software for the community — Team members — Previous participation in RoboCup — Participation and rankings in local RoboCup tournaments Remark: No IP addresses will be accepted as website. Remark: Only documented active software repositories are considered as contributions to the league. It must be clear and straightforward to other teams how to use your software. Qualification and evaluation criteria: -------------------------------------- In this Second Call for Participation, all open participation slots will be assigned. In order to qualify, a team must meet the minimum selection requirements approved by the Executive Committee. However, meeting the minimum requirements won’t automatically grant a participation slot. Only the top teams meeting the selection criterion will qualify for participation. The number of open participation slots varies per league with a saturation number of 12 teams per league Qualification materials will be judged by the following criteria: — Team description paper (clarity, scientific contributions, re-usability by the league, applicability in real world) — Performance in local tournaments and previous competitions. — Qualification Video (number of demonstrated abilities, integration, difficulty of the task, applicability in real world) — Website (multimedia, publications from last 5 years, downloadable content, open-source software and other contributions) — Relevant Scientific contribution/publications (downloadable papers and open-source software) — Novelty of approach (what you do is new for @Home) We encourage teams to produce self-explicative videos for a general audience where complex tasks are solved. For Team Description Papers focus on the scientific contribution and avoid brief descriptions of the overall system. -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- With kind regards, and looking forward to see your team in Bordeaux, The 2023 RoboCup@Home Organizing and Technical Committees

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[jobs] Doctoral Network Researchers - Transparent Interpretable Neural Robots
by Stefan Wermter 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

At the University of Hamburg, Dept of Informatics, Knowledge Technology, we are looking for applications for 2 Doctoral Candidate Researchers (PhD students) in neural network technology, intelligent robotics and transparency/explainability in artificial intelligence. Project: TRAIL: TRAnsparent InterpretabLe robots (Doctoral Network, EU MSCA Project) Start date: 1 March 2023 or later as agreed, for 3 years Salary level: salary in accordance with the attractive EU MSCA Doctoral Network regulations for doctoral candidates Application deadline: 31 January 2023 The Doctoral Network TRAIL consists of 15 institutions including universities, research institutions and industry partners. The research area of TRAIL is neural network technology, intelligent robotics and transparency in artificial intelligence and is coordinated by Universität Hamburg. The focus of the research at Universität Hamburg is on neural networks and explainability for interactive social robotics. There are two Doctoral Candidate research positions at Universität Hamburg which will be filled in the context of transparency and interpretation of neural networks for interactive cognitive robots. The researchers will focus on the following topics: Researcher 1: Interpretable latent representations in deep learning architectures Researcher 2: Automated interpretation of neural class activation mapping The successful candidate will receive an attractive salary in accordance with the MSCA regulations for Early-Stage Researchers. The exact (net) salary will be confirmed upon appointment and is dependent on local tax regulations and on the country correction factor (to allow for the difference in cost of living in different EU Member States). The salary includes a living allowance, a mobility allowance and a family allowance (if applicable). Furthermore, TRAIL will offer to take advantage of joint scientific research trainings, transferable skills workshops, and international conferences. For more information about the project and consortium see https://www.inf.uni-hamburg.de/en/inst/ab/wtm/research/trail.html Requirements: MSc or equivalent in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science or Engineering with a focus on Intelligent Systems, Intelligent Robotics or Neural Networks is required. Excellent programming skills (Python, C++, PyTorch, Machine Learning Frameworks, ROS etc.) are needed and expertise in at least one of neural networks or intelligent robotics is needed for these positions. The posts involve substantial traveling within Europe. Each PhD student will be expected to spend secondments at other partner sites and travel to international conferences. According to EU mobility rules, the doctoral researchers must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Germany for longer than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to their recruitment. Applicants who already have a doctoral degree are not eligible. Excellent English communication skills are an important requirement. Application: Upload your complete application documents (cover letter, curriculum vitae with details about where you resided or carried out your main activity [work, studies, etc.] in the three years immediately prior to the application deadline, copies of degree certificate[s], names and email contacts for two referees who would be willing to write a letter of support for your application, any English language certificates) via the online application form only. For more details on how to apply please go to: https://www.uni-hamburg.de/stellenangebote/ausschreibung.html?jobID=6cdcc9a… *********************************************** Professor Dr. Stefan Wermter Director of Knowledge Technology Department of Informatics University of Hamburg Vogt-Koelln-Str. 30 22527 Hamburg, Germany Email: stefan dot wermter AT uni-hamburg.de https://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/ ***********************************************

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[@Home2023] First Call For Participation (Deadline Extended)
by Mauricio Matamoros 27 Nov '22

27 Nov '22

*First Call for Participation* RoboCup@Home 2023 (DSPL · OPL · SSPL) July 6th–11th 2023 (Bordeaux, France) https://2023.robocup.org https://athome.robocup.org/ https://github.com/RoboCupAtHome/RuleBook RoboCup is an international scientific initiative with the goal to advance the state of the art of intelligent robots through competitions (RoboCup@Home, RoboCup Soccer, RoboCup Rescue, RoboCup@Work and RoboCup Junior). The RoboCup@Home league aims to develop service and assistive robot technology with high relevance for future personal domestic applications. It is the largest international annual competition for autonomous service robots and is part of the RoboCup initiative. A set of benchmark tests is used to evaluate the robots’ abilities and performance in a realistic home environment setting. Focus lies on the following domains but is not limited to: Human-Robot-Interaction and Cooperation, Navigation and Mapping in dynamic environments, Computer Vision and Object Recognition under natural light conditions, Object Manipulation, Adaptive Behaviors, Behavior Integration, Ambient Intelligence, Standardization and System Integration. This page describes the preregistration and qualification procedure for RoboCup@Home 2023. Important dates: Oct. 16, 2022 Publication of the Call for Participation Oct. 30, 2022 Deadline for submission of participation intention. Nov. 27, 2022 Deadline for submission of qualification material. *Dec. 11, 2022* *Deadline for submission of qualification material. EXTENDED.* *(Team Description Paper, Team Video, Team Website).* Jan. 9, 2023 Qualification announcement Jan. 29, 2023 Deadline for Participation Confirmation The qualification procedure consists of the following steps: Step 1) Participation Intention Submission (advised) Teams are invited to send an email to the Organizing Committee (rc-home-oc[at]lists.robocup.org) stating their intention to participate in the qualification process for the RoboCup@Home 2023 event. Please fill in the following information: Team Name: League: [ DSPL | OPL | SSPL ] Country: Affiliation: Hereby team [Your Team Name] expresses its intention of taking part in the 2023 RoboCup@Home. The e-mail subject should be: [@Home2023-Participation] (YourTeamName) Considerations: - Please keep your team names short. - Only one league can be specified per team. - The email must be encoded in UTF-8 using only the ISO-8859-1 character set. ***** Deadline: Sunday, October. 30, 2022 23:59 GMT ****** Step 2) Qualification Material Submission (mandatory) The team ***MUST*** send an email to the Organizing Committee (rc-home-oc[at]lists.robocup.org) to participate in the qualification process for the RoboCup@Home 2023 event. Please fill in the following information: Team Name: League: [ DSPL | OPL | SSPL ] Country: Affiliation: Team Leader Name: Contact information (E-mail): Rank in local tournaments: Link to a team video: Link to a team web site devoted to their efforts: Team Description Paper (TDP) attached to the email based on the official template. The e-mail subject should be: [@Home2023-Qualification] (YourTeamName) Considerations: - Only one platform can be specified per team. - Only one team leader can be specified per team. - Only one team video url can be specified per team. - Only one contact email can be specified per team. - All the publications and software to be evaluated for qualification ***MUST*** be in the team’s website. - The email must be encoded in UTF-8 using only the ISO-8859-1 character set. * **** Deadline: Sunday, Dec. 11, 2022 23:59 GMT ****** Step 3) Participation confirmation (mandatory) All qualified teams ***MUST*** send an email to the Organizing Committee (rc-home-oc[at]lists.robocup.org) to confirm (or cancel) their participation in the RoboCup@Home 2023 event. Confirming attendance implies that the team has sufficient resources to register, and commits to attend to the event. To confirm participation, please fill in the following information: Team Name: League: [ DSPL | OPL | SSPL ] Country: Hereby [Team Name] of [Country] [confirms | forfeits] participation in the the RoboCup@Home [League]. The e-mail subject should be: [@Home2023-Confirmation] (YourTeamName) *Remark: *Qualified teams who miss the participation confirmation automatically waiver participation, freeing their for the Second Call for Participation. Teams can resubmit materials during the Second CFP ***** Deadline: Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023 23:59 GMT ****** Instructions for the Qualification Material Instructions for the Team Video: In order to proof a running hardware, each team has to provide a qualification video. As a minimum requirement for qualification, the video must show the robot(s) successfully solving a task involving the integration of at least 5 different abilities, such as: environmental reasoning, high-level task planning, human-robot interaction, localization, manipulation, object recognition, people recognition, etc. *Remarks:* - The shown task execution must look continuous, smooth, and robust. - When speeding-up video, the speed factor must be indicated. - The language spoken and shown in the video must be English. When using any other languages, translations as closed captions must be included. - We strongly suggest captioning the videos, particularly for the robot speech and participants with strong accents. - We strongly suggest upload videos to Youtube. - Videos sent will be uploaded/displayed in the league’s youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChkdCpT0xrFMMt-_N8wSVew/playlists” <http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChkdCpT0xrFMMt-_N8wSVew/playlists> - *Standard Platforms Only:* Teams ***MUST*** use the standard robot in their Team Video. *HINT:* It is strongly advised to show your robot(s) smoothly and accurately solving any of the Stage II tests of the 2018, 2019, and 2022 rulebooks. *Copyright note:*When sending videos for qualification, teams implicitly grant permission to RoboCup @Home and the RoboCup Federation to copy, modify, distribute, upload, publish, and use the multimedia material to promote the event and the league at convenience. Instructions for the TDP The TDP is an 8-pages long scientific paper, detailing information on the technical and scientific approach of the team’s research, while including also the following: - TDP - Group’s research focus and interests. - Innovative technology and scientific contribution - Please specify when your research is being used by other teams or research groups - Please specify when you are using software from other teams - Brief, general description of the system when solving a [domestic] task (applicability in the real world) - The impact of your research must be clearly visible - Maximum length is *8 pages* (including figures and citations) - Annex - Photo(s) of the robot - Brief, compact list of the 3rd party robot’s software (e.g. include MoveIt/YOLO) - Brief, compact description of all external computing devices, if any - Brief, compact description of the robot’s hardware (OPL Only) - Please mark with an asterisk home-made software solutions - Annex should be appended after the References - There is no page limit for annex, but a maximum of one page is strongly encouraged - TDP length is *****8 pages + annex***** (any submissions over this length will be disqualified). - *DSPL and SSPL:* The robot depicted in the TDP or Team Video must be the league’s standard one. For the TDP, please use the Springer LNAI format <http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0> used in the RoboCup Symposium submissions and limit yourself to 8 pages without altering margins or spacing (including references but excluding the annex). You may download a template for the TDP from here <https://github.com/RoboCupAtHome/TDPTemplate>. *Remark: *The language for the TDP, its graphics, tables, images, and all additional content must be English. Content in other languages must be translated. *Copyright note:*All TDPs sent for qualification may be made publicly available in the RoboCup @Home Wiki for further reference. On submitting, teams implicitly grant permission to RoboCup @Home and the RoboCup Federation to copy, distribute, upload, publish, and use the manuscript to promote the event and the league at convenience. ***** Exceeding the number of pages will automatically void your application *****. Instructions for the Web site While the TDP goes into detail about the technical and scientific approach of the team’s research, the website should be designed for a broader audience, including: - Photos of the robot(s) - Videos of the robot(s) - Description of the approaches and information on scientific achievements - Relevant publications (last 5 years, preferably available to download) - Link to repositories with software for the community - Team members - Previous participation in RoboCup - Participation and rankings in local RoboCup tournaments *Remark: *No IP addresses will be accepted as website. *Remark: *Only documented active software repositories are considered as contributions to the league. It must be clear and straightforward to other teams how to use your software. Qualification and evaluation criteria: In this first Call for Participation, up to 8 teams per league can be assigned a participation slot. In order to qualify, a team must meet the minimum selection requirements approved by the Executive Committee. However, meeting the minimum requirements won’t automatically grant a participation slot. Only the top 8 teams meeting the selection criterion will qualify for participation. Rejections are strongly advised to improve their qualification materials and apply in the second CFP. Qualification materials will be judged by the following criteria: - Team description paper (clarity, scientific contributions, re-usability by the league, applicability in real world) - Performance in local tournaments and previous competitions. - Qualification Video (number of demonstrated abilities, integration, difficulty of the task, applicability in real world) - Website (multimedia, publications from last 5 years, downloadable content, open-source software and other contributions) - Relevant Scientific contribution/publications (downloadable papers and open-source software) - Novelty of approach (what you do is new for @Home) We encourage teams to produce self-explicative videos for a general audience where complex tasks are solved. For Team Description Papers focus on the scientific contribution and avoid brief descriptions of the overall system. With kind regards, and looking forward to see your team in Bordeaux, The 2023 RoboCup@Home Organizing and Technical Committees

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[@Home2023] First Call for Participation
by Mauricio Matamoros 15 Oct '22

15 Oct '22

Online version: https://athome.robocup.org/2023-cfp1-all/ *First Call for Participation* RoboCup@Home 2023 (DSPL · OPL · SSPL) July 6th–11th 2023 (Bordeaux, France) https://2023.robocup.org https://athome.robocup.org/ https://github.com/RoboCupAtHome/RuleBook RoboCup is an international scientific initiative with the goal to advance the state of the art of intelligent robots through competitions (RoboCup@Home, RoboCup Soccer, RoboCup Rescue, RoboCup@Work and RoboCup Junior). The RoboCup@Home league aims to develop service and assistive robot technology with high relevance for future personal domestic applications. It is the largest international annual competition for autonomous service robots and is part of the RoboCup initiative. A set of benchmark tests is used to evaluate the robots' abilities and performance in a realistic home environment setting. Focus lies on the following domains but is not limited to: Human-Robot-Interaction and Cooperation, Navigation and Mapping in dynamic environments, Computer Vision and Object Recognition under natural light conditions, Object Manipulation, Adaptive Behaviors, Behavior Integration, Ambient Intelligence, Standardization and System Integration. This page describes the preregistration and qualification procedure for RoboCup@Home 2023. Important dates: Oct. 16, 2022 Publication of the Call for Participation Oct. 30, 2022 Deadline for submission of participation intention. Nov. 27, 2022 Deadline for submission of qualification material. (Team Description Paper, Team Video, Team Website). Jan. 9, 2023 Qualification announcement Jan. 29, 2023 Deadline for Participation Confirmation The qualification procedure consists of the following steps: Step 1) Participation Intention Submission (advised) Teams are invited to send an email to the Organizing Committee (rc-home-oc[at]lists.robocup.org) stating their intention to participate in the qualification process for the RoboCup@Home 2023 event. Please fill in the following information: Team Name: League: [ DSPL | OPL | SSPL ] Country: Affiliation: Hereby team [Your Team Name] expresses its intention of taking part in the 2023 RoboCup@Home. The e-mail subject should be: [@Home2023-Participation] (YourTeamName) Considerations: * Please keep your team names short. * Only one league can be specified per team. * The email must be encoded in UTF-8 using only the ISO-8859-1 character set. /***** Deadline: Sunday, October. 30, 2022 23:59 GMT ******/ Step 2) Qualification Material Submission (mandatory) The team ***MUST*** send an email to the Organizing Committee (rc-home-oc[at]lists.robocup.org) to participate in the qualification process for the RoboCup@Home 2023 event. Please fill in the following information: Team Name: League: [ DSPL | OPL | SSPL ] Country: Affiliation: Team Leader Name: Contact information (E-mail): Rank in local tournaments: Link to a team video: Link to a team web site devoted to their efforts: Team Description Paper (TDP) attached to the email based on the official template. The e-mail subject should be: [@Home2023-Qualification] (YourTeamName) Considerations: * Only one platform can be specified per team. * Only one team leader can be specified per team. * Only one team video url can be specified per team. * Only one contact email can be specified per team. * All the publications and software to be evaluated for qualification ***MUST*** be in the team's website. * The email must be encoded in UTF-8 using only the ISO-8859-1 character set. /***** Deadline: Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022 23:59 GMT ******/ Step 3) Participation confirmation (mandatory) All qualified teams ***MUST*** send an email to the Organizing Committee (rc-home-oc[at]lists.robocup.org) to confirm (or cancel) their participation in the RoboCup@Home 2023 event. Confirming attendance implies that the team has sufficient resources to register, and commits to attend to the event. To confirm participation, please fill in the following information: Team Name: League: [ DSPL | OPL | SSPL ] Country: Hereby [Team Name] of [Country] [confirms | forfeits] participation in the the RoboCup@Home [League]. The e-mail subject should be: [@Home2023-Confirmation] (YourTeamName) *Remark: *Qualified teams who miss the participation confirmation automatically waiver participation, freeing their for the Second Call for Participation. Teams can resubmit materials during the Second CFP /***** Deadline: Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023 23:59 GMT ******/ Instructions for the Qualification Material Instructions for the Team Video: In order to proof a running hardware, each team has to provide a qualification video. As a minimum requirement for qualification, the video must show the robot(s) successfully solving a task involving the integration of at least 5 different abilities, such as: environmental reasoning, high-level task planning, human-robot interaction, localization, manipulation, object recognition, people recognition, etc. *Remarks:* * The shown task execution must look continuous, smooth, and robust. * When speeding-up video, the speed factor must be indicated. * The language spoken and shown in the video must be English. When using any other languages, translations as closed captions must be included. * We strongly suggest captioning the videos, particularly for the robot speech and participants with strong accents. * We strongly suggest upload videos to Youtube. * Videos sent will be uploaded/displayed in the league's youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChkdCpT0xrFMMt-_N8wSVew/playlists" <http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChkdCpT0xrFMMt-_N8wSVew/playlists> * *Standard Platforms Only:* Teams ***MUST*** use the standard robot in their Team Video. *HINT:* It is strongly advised to show your robot(s) smoothly and accurately solving any of the Stage II tests of the 2018, 2019, and 2022 rulebooks. *Copyright note:*When sending videos for qualification, teams implicitly grant permission to RoboCup @Home and the RoboCup Federation to copy, modify, distribute, upload, publish, and use the multimedia material to promote the event and the league at convenience. Instructions for the TDP The TDP is an 8-pages long scientific paper, detailing information on the technical and scientific approach of the team's research, while including also the following: * TDP o Group's research focus and interests. o Innovative technology and scientific contribution + Please specify when your research is being used by other teams or research groups + Please specify when you are using software from other teams o Brief, general description of the system when solving a [domestic] task (applicability in the real world) + The impact of your research must be clearly visible o Maximum length is *8 pages* (including figures and citations) * Annex o Photo(s) of the robot o Brief, compact list of the 3rd party robot's software (e.g. include MoveIt/YOLO) o Brief, compact description of all external computing devices, if any o Brief, compact description of the robot's hardware (OPL Only) o Please mark with an asterisk home-made software solutions o Annex should be appended after the References o There is no page limit for annex, but a maximum of one page is strongly encouraged * TDP length is *****8 pages + annex***** (any submissions over this length will be disqualified). * *DSPL and SSPL:* The robot depicted in the TDP or Team Video must be the league's standard one. For the TDP, please use the Springer LNAI format <http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0> used in the RoboCup Symposium submissions and limit yourself to 8 pages without altering margins or spacing (including references but excluding the annex). You may download a template for the TDP from here <https://github.com/RoboCupAtHome/TDPTemplate>. *Remark: *The language for the TDP, its graphics, tables, images, and all additional content must be English. Content in other languages must be translated. *Copyright note:*All TDPs sent for qualification may be made publicly available in the RoboCup @Home Wiki for further reference. On submitting, teams implicitly grant permission to RoboCup @Home and the RoboCup Federation to copy, distribute, upload, publish, and use the manuscript to promote the event and the league at convenience. ***** Exceeding the number of pages will automatically void your application *****. Instructions for the Web site While the TDP goes into detail about the technical and scientific approach of the team's research, the website should be designed for a broader audience, including: * Photos of the robot(s) * Videos of the robot(s) * Description of the approaches and information on scientific achievements * Relevant publications (last 5 years, preferably available to download) * Link to repositories with software for the community * Team members * Previous participation in RoboCup * Participation and rankings in local RoboCup tournaments *Remark: *No IP addresses will be accepted as website. *Remark: *Only documented active software repositories are considered as contributions to the league. It must be clear and straightforward to other teams how to use your software. Qualification and evaluation criteria: In this first Call for Participation, up to 8 teams per league can be assigned a participation slot. In order to qualify, a team must meet the minimum selection requirements approved by the Executive Committee. However, meeting the minimum requirements won't automatically grant a participation slot. Only the top 8 teams meeting the selection criterion will qualify for participation. Rejections are strongly advised to improve their qualification materials and apply in the second CFP. Qualification materials will be judged by the following criteria: * Team description paper (clarity, scientific contributions, re-usability by the league, applicability in real world) * Performance in local tournaments and previous competitions. * Qualification Video (number of demonstrated abilities, integration, difficulty of the task, applicability in real world) * Website (multimedia, publications from last 5 years, downloadable content, open-source software and other contributions) * Relevant Scientific contribution/publications (downloadable papers and open-source software) * Novelty of approach (what you do is new for @Home) We encourage teams to produce self-explicative videos for a general audience where complex tasks are solved. For Team Description Papers focus on the scientific contribution and avoid brief descriptions of the overall system. With kind regards, and looking forward to see your team in Bordeaux, The 2023 RoboCup@Home Organizing and Technical Committees

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Call for Papers: Intelligence and Safety for Humanoid Robots: Design, Control, and Applications (Frontiers in Neurorobotics, IF: 3.493)
by Keke Tang 01 Sep '22

01 Sep '22

Dear colleges, As a guest editor, it is my great honor to invite you to submit your high-quality work to our special issue: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/38532/intelligence-and-safety-f… If you are interested, please submit your paper to this special issue with selecting me (Keke Tang) as the handling editor. Best regards, Keke Tang Guangzhou University, China ======================================================================== Humanoid robots attract growing research interests from different communities, both as tools for artificial intelligence research and neurocognitive interaction assessment and, as enabling technology with high societal impacts as personal robots for health, education, and entertainment. These robots, modeled on the basis of the embodiment of neural systems in software and hardware devices, are characterized by a high number of degrees of freedom, complex end effectors and locomotion mechanisms on the hardware side. On the control side, they are characterized by the intrinsic and complex variety of their behavioral skills that are learned (imitation, reinforcement, statistical), for instance, learning-by-demonstration, data-driven approaches to humanoid arm programming, and the most recent AI-based approaches to manipulation and locomotion control. Targeting co-existence or physical interactions with humans, both intelligence and safety are of great importance for service-oriented humanoid robots. Intelligence and safety correspond to software and hardware levels of humanoid robots, respectively. There has been recent progress in both areas, such as the quick emergence of learning-based artificial intelligence and soft robotics, bringing paradigm changes to the brain-inspired humanoid design, control, and applications. This second volume focuses on the intelligence and safety of humanoid robots, and the interest extends to the interactions between the two areas: 1) Intelligence resulting from safety: mechanically programmable intelligence for soft humanoid robots that does not put heavy reliance on control; 2) Safety resulting from intelligence: cybersecurity challenges and solutions arising from intelligent humanoids with learning and adaptation capabilities. We welcome manuscript submissions addressing the design, control, and application of safe and intelligent humanoid parts and systems. Topics include but are not limited to the following: - Design of soft and compliant humanoid robots, for instance, robotic fingers, hands, arms, legs. - Decentralized control or high-level control of humanoid robotic fingers, hands, arms, legs with neural networks. - Intelligent interaction between human and humanoid robots for human-robot cooperative tasks, for instance, lifting the table. - Techniques to guarantee safety between human and humanoid robots, corresponding to the software and hardware levels.

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[Call for Participation] LACORO 2023 – Latin American Summer,School on Cognitive Robotics
by Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero 15 Aug '22

15 Aug '22

Dear All, We are excited to announce the 2nd Latin American Summer School on Cognitive Robotics (LACORO), which aims at making cutting-edge knowledge on Artificial Intelligence for Robotics Applications accessible in the Southern Hemisphere. Our aims are: - to build a sustainable community of students and researchers in the area of Artificial Intelligence for Robotics, particularly Cognitive Inspired Aspects of AI. - to foster intercultural student collaboration within and outside the Americas. Format: LACORO will include cutting-edge lectures and tutorials on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and aspects of Human Cognition. Moreover, we will host tutorial and mentoring sessions for both scientific topics and other aspects of the academic research world. Date and Location: LACORO will be held in-person from the 3rd to 6th of January, 2023 at the Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Andrés Bello (UNAB), Santiago, Chile. Applications: Please visit our website, where you can find more information regarding costs, travel, lodging, along with an application form. If you have any questions about the school or the application process, please contact the organizing committee: lacoro(a)innovacionyrobotica.com Best regards from the organizing committee, -- Dr. rer. nat. Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero https://nicolas-navarro-guerrero.github.io/

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Call for participation in IROS2022 Workshop on “Evaluating Motion Planning Performance: Metrics, Tools, Datasets, and Experimental Design”
by Carlos Andres Quintero Peña 04 Aug '22

04 Aug '22

Dear RoboCup@home community, We are excited to announce the inaugural workshop on “Evaluating Motion Planning Performance: Metrics, Tools, Datasets, and Experimental Design” at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, (IROS) 2022. The workshop will focus on state of the art motion planning evaluations, trends, and problems. We are inviting researchers and practitioners in robotics and AI to contribute relevant submissions. The workshop will host leaders in academia and industry as invited speakers. We are pleased to welcome broader participation and engagement within the robotics and AI communities. The workshop will be hybrid wherein we will support participation for those who join us at IROS 2022 in Kyoto as well as virtual attendance. We are exploring options for streaming the event as well as archiving relevant resources. Please feel free to share our cordial invitation to your colleagues at the RoboCup community to submit contributions, participate, or attend the workshop. If you have questions, see our website (https://motion-planning-workshop.kavrakilab.org/) or contact us at motionplanningworkshop(a)gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you at the workshop! Carlos Quintero Peña On behalf of the organizers: Constantinos Chamzas, Rice University Dr. Zachary Kingston, Rice University Dr. Khen Elimelech, Rice University Dr. Wil Thomason, Rice University Carlos Quintero-Peña, Rice University Dr. Rahul Shome, Rice University Professor Lydia Kavraki, Rice University

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