March 2022 - RoboCup-worldwide

Deadline Extension to April 6, 2022 / Call for participation: RoboCup Rescue German Open 2022 – DRZ Edition (May 8-12, 2022)
by April Foster 31 Mar '22

31 Mar '22

Call for Participation RoboCup Rescue German Open 2022 – DRZ Edition **Registration deadline extended to April 6th, 2022.** *The remaining slots will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.* Dear RoboCup Rescue Robot League Teams, We are happy to announce the upcoming RoboCup German Open 2022 Rescue Robot League Competition – DRZ Edition. The rescue robotics competition is based on Rules of the RoboCup Rescue Robot League and is complemented by tasks derived from firefighter missions. Artificial limited network capabilities will be part of the competition this year. Dortmund is about 2.5 h by train from Frankfurt International Airport and 1.5 h by train from Duesseldorf International Airport. Dates: - Registration: Until *April 6th*, 2022 - Acceptance notification: April 8th, 2022 - Setup days: Sunday, May 8th and Monday, May 9th, 2022 - Competitions: Tuesday, May 10th and Wednesday, May 11th, 2022 - Finals: Thursday, May 12th, 2022 The competition will be hosted by the non-profit German Rescue Robotics Center (DRZ), https://www.rescuerobotics.eu, in its large and well equipped testing facility. The event will be organized by DRZ together with RoboCup Rescue representatives of the German RoboCup regional committee. A registration fee will be required for participation. More information including the rules are available at https://rettungsrobotik.de/robocup-german-open-2022-rescue-robot-league-27-… The event will only be open to participants, organizers and press. Daily media coverage as well as live streaming of the finals is being considered for the public. We are excited about this opportunity for the RoboCup Rescue Robot League and would be happy to meet as many of you as possible on this occasion in Dortmund! The maximum number of teams and participants is limited. We already have a couple of interested teams, but we can accommodate a few more teams at the competition. Teams will be registered on a first-come, first-serve basis. If you want to participate, we kindly ask you to register by April 6st, 2022 by sending an email to: info[a]rettungsrobotik.de (and CC johannes.pellenz[a]gmail.com and stefan.may[a]th-nuernberg.de) Please send the team name, your country, your affiliation, the number of team members (including the team leader), full contact information (name, email, phone number and address) of the team leader. If there are any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Kind regards, Johannes Pellenz and Stefan May RoboCup German Open Rescue League

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[Kick-off Webinar] 3rd European RoboCupJunior 2022 | RoboCup@Home Education Challenge 2022
by Gil Lopes 29 Mar '22

29 Mar '22

Topic: [Kick-off Webinar] 3rd European RoboCupJunior 2022 | RoboCup@Home Education Challenge 2022 Time: Mar 29, 2022 10:30 AM Lisbon Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/92354746485?pwd=QTB3V1VWSXZ6K3FPa3Z4cWxVbm5WQT09 Meeting ID: 923 5474 6485 Passcode: 93NnFp Best regards RoboCup@Home Education Challenge 2022 @ 3rd European RoboCupJunior 2022 Organizing Committee

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CFP - Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience Special Issue
by Pub Conference 25 Mar '22

25 Mar '22

Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience <https://www.hindawi.com/journals/cin/> Special Issue -Interpretation of Machine Learning: Prediction, Representation, Modeling, and Visualization 2022 https://www.hindawi.com/journals/cin/si/470979/ Potential topics include but are not limited to the following: - Supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning - Classification, clustering, and optimization for big data analytics - Extracting understanding from large-scale and heterogeneous data - Dimensionality reduction and analysis of large-scale and complex data - Deep learning for time series forecasting - Quantifying or visualizing the interpretability of deep neural networks - Stability improvement of deep neural network optimization - Novel machine and deep learning approaches in the applications of image/signal processing, business intelligence, games, healthcare, bioinformatics, and security Publishing date 01 Dec 2022 Status Open Submission deadline 22 Jul 2022

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[RC-Humanoid League Virtual Season] Workshops and next games
by Alessandra Rossi 24 Mar '22

24 Mar '22

Dear Robocuppers, The first round of games for RC-HL virtual season just ended. We streamed the last game of the Round Robin phase last Sunday (20 March). We will now enter in the Quarterfinals, which they will be streamed on April 3rd starting at 10am (CEST time). The Semi-Final and Final will be streamed on April 17th from the joint event German Open Replacement Event (GORE) organised by SPL and Humanoid League which takes place in Hamburg (Germany) from 12.04. to 17.04.22. At the end of the games, RC-HL virtual season organisers will hold a three days event on April 28-30, 2022 focused on exploring the sim2real transfer topic. It will be a great opportunity for both exploring future collaborations between different leagues, and sharing knowledge and experiences of applying realistic computational resources and scenario to the virtual competition, and the other way around. We welcome proposals for half hour workshops. More info on how to submit your proposal are here -> https://humanoid.robocup.org/hl-vs2022/rc-hl-virtual-season-workshops/call-… Looking forward to receive your valuable inputs and contributions. Best regards, Alessandra On behalf of the RC-HL virtual organisation committee More info on our website: https://humanoid.robocup.org/hl-vs2022 We will be streaming all of our games on Twitch Field A For checking the time zone differences, you can use websites such as worldtimebuddy Dr. Alessandra Rossi Assistant Professor PRISCA research lab Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

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LPNMR 2022 - 2nd Call for Papers
by cfp 23 Mar '22

23 Mar '22

[Apologies in case of multiple posting] 1 month to abstract submission! Call for Papers --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16th International Conference on Logic Programming and Non-monotonic Reasoning LPNMR 2022 https://lpnmr2022.dibris.unige.it Genova, Italy September 5-9, 2022 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AIMS AND SCOPE LPNMR 2022 is the sixteenth in the series of international meetings on logic programming and non-monotonic reasoning. LPNMR is a forum for exchanging ideas on declarative logic programming, non-monotonic reasoning, and knowledge representation. The aim of the conference is to facilitate interactions between researchers and practitioners interested in the design and implementation of logic-based programming languages and database systems, and those working in knowledge representation and non-monotonic reasoning. LPNMR strives to encompass theoretical and experimental studies that have led or will lead to advances in declarative programming and knowledge representation, as well as their use in practical applications. A Doctoral Consortium will also be a part of the program. LPNMR 2022 aims to bring together researchers from LPNMR core areas and application areas of the aforementioned kind in order to share research experiences, promote collaboration and identify directions for joint future research. TOPICS Authors are invited to submit papers presenting original and unpublished research on all aspects of non-monotonic approaches in logic programming and knowledge representation. We invite submissions of both long and short papers on topics detailed below. Conference topics include, but are not limited to: 1. Foundations of LPNMR Systems: * Semantics of new and existing languages; * Action languages, causality; * Formalization of Commonsense Reasoning and understanding its laws and nature; * Relationships among formalisms; * Complexity and expressive power; * Inference algorithms and heuristics for LPNMR systems; * Extensions of traditional LPNMR languages such as new logical connectives or new inference capabilities; * Updates, revision, and other operations on LPNMR systems; * Uncertainty in LPNMR systems. 2. Implementation of LPNMR systems: * System descriptions, comparisons, evaluations; * Algorithms and novel techniques for efficient evaluation; * LPNMR benchmarks. 3. Applications of LPNMR: * Use of LPNMR in Commonsense Reasoning and other areas of KR; * LPNMR languages and algorithms in planning, diagnosis, argumentation, reasoning with preferences, decision making and policies; * Applications of LPNMR languages in data integration and exchange systems, software engineering and model checking; * Applications of LPNMR to bioinformatics, linguistics, psychology, and other sciences; * Integration of LPNMR systems with other computational paradigms; * Embedded LPNMR: Systems using LPNMR subsystems. SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION LPNMR 2022 welcomes submissions of long papers (13 pages) or short papers (6 pages) in the following categories: * Technical papers * System descriptions * Application descriptions The indicated number of pages includes title page, figures, tables, references and appendix. All submissions will be peer-reviewed and accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings published in the Springer's Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) series. At least one author of each accepted paper is expected to register for the conference to present the work. Submissions must be written in English, present original research, and be formatted according to Springer's guidelines and technical instructions available at: https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/conference-proceedings/conferen… Paper submission is enabled via the LPNMR 2022 Easychair site: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lpnmr2022 The two best papers of general AI interest will be invited for rapid publication in the Artificial Intelligence Journal. Also, the 2-5 best papers with a logic programming focus will be invited for rapid publication in the journal of Theory and Practice of Logic Programming. MULTIPLE SUBMISSION POLICY LPNMR 2022 will not accept any paper which, at the time of submission, is under review or has already been published or accepted for publication in a journal or another conference. Authors are also required not to submit their papers elsewhere during LPNMR's review period. However, these restrictions do not apply to previous workshops with a limited audience and without archival proceedings. COLOCATED WORKSHOPS * DATALOG 2.0 Workshop * 1st International Workshop on HYbrid Models for Coupling Deductive and Inductive ReAsoning (HYDRA 2022) * 29th RCRA workshop on Experimental evaluation of algorithms for solving problems with combinatorial explosion (RCRA 2022) ASSOCIATED EVENTS LPNMR DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM - A mentoring event where PhD students have a chance to present their current research, get feedback from peers and senior researchers, and establish contacts for their future career. FURTHER INFORMATION WWW:https://lpnmr2022.dibris.unige.it Email:lpnmr2022@easychair.org (program) lpnmr2022(a)dibris.unige.it (general matters) Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/lpnmr2022 Twitter:https://twitter.com/lpnmr2022 Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/lpnmr2022 IMPORTANT DATES * Paper registration: April 23, 2022 * Paper submission: April 30, 2022 * Notification: June 10, 2022 * Final versions due: June 30, 2022 VENUE The main conference will take place in Genova Nervi, Italy, in the Collegio Emiliani (http://www.collegioemiliani.it/, information available only in Italian on this link), which is a college directly situated on the sea. Nervi is a former fishing village, now a suburb of Genoa. Nervi is 7 km east of central Genova. Genova is the capital of Liguria, stretching along the bay of the same name from Nervi to the east as far as Voltri to the west. The pride of Nervi is the sea promenade, a 2 km walkway along the cliffs. The stunning views make it one of Italy's most beautiful promenades. Nervi is also well known for its Parchi, a park of about 22 acres (9 hectares) created from the gardens of the Villa Grimaldi, Villa Groppallo, and Villa Serra. It has typical Mediterranean plant species and many exotic species. Genova's old town district (reachable by local train, by bus, as well as by boat) is one of the largest in Europe, and hosts some remarkable artistic and architectural treasures, including the Palazzi dei Rolli, fifty or so homes of the aristocracy entered on the UNESCO World Heritage List. In addition to offering a wealth of cultural attractions, Genova is a fascinating destination for tourists, with its scenic vantage points, sea promenades, aristocratic villas and of course the Riviera to the east and west, both easy to reach: Portovenere and Le Cinque Terre (also UNESCO World Heritage Sites), Portofino and Camogli to the east and Alassio, Sanremo, Bordighera to the west. Associated events (workshops) are planned to be held at the University, which is in the city center of Genova, but we are still considering if they can be done in the main conference venue. Of course, we will continuously monitor the pandemic situation in order to evaluate whether the conference can be indeed held as an in-person event, or we will need to switch to a hybrid event, if not completely on-line. GENERAL CHAIR Georg Gottlob, Oxford University, UK PROGRAM CHAIRS Daniela Inclezan, Miami University, USA Marco Maratea, University of Genova, Italy PUBLICITY CHAIR Jessica Zangari, University of Calabria, Italy WORKSHOPS CHAIR Viviana Mascardi, University of Genova, Italy DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM CHAIR Martin Gebser, University of Klagenfurt, Austria LOCAL ORGANIZATION Matteo Cardellini, University of Genova, Italy Angelo Ferrando, University of Genova, Italy (Chair) Marco Mochi, University of Genova, Italy PROGRAM COMMITTEE Mario Alviano, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Calabria Chitta Baral, Arizona State University Marcello Balduccini, Saint Joseph's University Francesco Calimeri, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Calabria Marina De Vos, University of Bath Carmine Dodaro, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Calabria Agostino Dovier, University of Udine Daniele Theseider Dupré, Universita' del Piemonte Orientale Thomas Eiter, Vienna University of Technology Esra Erdem, Sabanci University Wolfgang Faber, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Johannes K. Fichte, TU Wien Paul Fodor, Stony Brook University Gerhard Friedrich, Alpen-Adria-Universitaet Sarah Alice Gaggl, TU Dresden Martin Gebser, University of Klagenfurt Michael Gelfond, Texas Tech University Gopal Gupta, The University of Texas at Dallas Katsumi Inoue, NII Tomi Janhunen, Tampere University Gabriele Kern-Isberner, Technische Universitaet Dortmund Matthias Knorr, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa Emily Leblanc, Drexel University Joao Leite, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa Vladimir Lifschitz, The University of Texas at Austin Enrico Pontelli, New Mexico State University Francesco Ricca, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Calabria Alessandra Russo, Imperial College London Orkunt Sabuncu, TED University, Ankara Chiaki Sakama, Wakayama University Torsten Schaub, University of Potsdam Guillermo R. Simari, Universidad del Sur in Bahia Blanca Theresa Swift, NOVALINKS, Universidade Nova de Lisboa Matthias Thimm, FernUniversität in Hagen Hans Tompits, Vienna University of Technology Mirek Truszczynski, Computer Science Department, University of Kentucky Johannes P. Wallner, TU Graz Kewen Wang, Griffith University Stefan Woltran, Vienna University of Technology Jia-Huai You, University of Alberta

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MathWorks: New MATLAB Version update for RoboCup teams
by April Foster 22 Mar '22

22 Mar '22

Please see the below message from MathWorks, a global sponsor of RoboCup: Dear RoboCup teams, Here are some quick MATLAB updates for R2022a: 1. R2022a Version of MATLAB <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvTjkwroCfo> is available and can be downloaded here <https://www.mathworks.com/downloads/web_downloads/> 2. Complimentary licenses for ALL RoboCup teams <https://www.mathworks.com/academia/student-competitions/robocup.html> are available for the 2022 season 3. The new *RoboCup Autonomous Robot Manipulation Challenge* <https://arm.robocup.org/> uses MATLAB/Simulink and is *accepting registrations until May 2022.* You can explore the release notes <https://www.mathworks.com/help/relnotes/> for all new features in R2022a. We put together some feature highlights below for Robotics and Autonomous Systems related products we thought the RoboCup community might find interesting: - Robotics System Toolbox <https://www.mathworks.com/help/robotics/release-notes.html> - Scenario and sensor simulation tools - Inverse Kinematics Designer application - Support for Gazebo 11 Co-Simulation - ROS Toolbox <https://www.mathworks.com/help/ros/release-notes.html> - ROS/ROS2 Node generation from MATLAB - Generation of CUDA optimized ROS2 nodes from Simulink - Support for ROS Noetic, ROS2 Foxy - Navigation Toolbox <https://www.mathworks.com/help/nav/release-notes.html> - Model SLAM and structure from motion with factor graphs - Additional lidarSLAM Properties - Sensor Fusion and Tracking Toolbox <https://www.mathworks.com/help/fusion/release-notes.html> - EKF-based flexible fusion framework for INS data - Correct, handle, retrodict and simulate out-of-sequence measurements - Computer Vision Toolbox <https://www.mathworks.com/help/vision/release-notes.html> - Instance segmentation using Mask R-CNN networks - Support for YOLOv4 - Examples for Visual SLAM - Lidar Toolbox <https://www.mathworks.com/help/lidar/release-notes.html> - Lidar Odometry and Mapping (LOAM) - Lidar Labeler Enhancements - Deep Learning Examples using Lidar

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[@HomeEDU2022] Call for Participation
by Gil Lopes 21 Mar '22

21 Mar '22

[image: LOGO BASE 01.png] =========================================== RoboCup@Home Education @ 3rd European RoboCupJunior 2022 =========================================== June 1 ~ 4, 2022 Guimarães, Portugal GPS: 41.4354604427687, -8.306253820680457 https://2022.robocupjunior.eu/ <http://2022.robocupjunior.eu/> *INTRODUCTION* RoboCup@Home Education is a special education program to support new teams in the context of a simplified RoboCup@Home competition. It is oriented to help form new teams and prepare them for the main competitions. *VENUE* Pavilhão Multiusos - Guimarães Alameda Cidade de Lisboa 481, Guimarães (Portugal) GPS: 41.4354604427687, -8.306253820680457 *AIM* RoboCup@Home Education is an educational initiative that promotes educational efforts to promote access to modern technologies such as computer vision, speech understanding, or machine learning and to boost RoboCup@Home participation and service robot development. The aim is to narrow the technological gap between RoboCupJunior and RoboCup Major leagues. RoboCup@Home Education activities started in 2015 with various workshops and competitions around the globe. The workshop audiences range from inexperienced high school students to freshmen in engineering programs at the university level. In order to provide a soft start, the competitions are blended with preparation workshops. Teams will be assisted remotely in preparation for the challenge with tutorials (possibly webinars) and assignments. *CATEGORIES* There are two types of robot platforms in the Education Challenge: *Open Platform (OP)* and *Standard Platform (SP)*. - Teams in *Open Platform* use custom build robots for the challenge events. The challenge’s development focus is on both hardware and software designs. - Teams in *Standard Platform* use a standardised robot platform - Pepper robot from SoftBank Robotics in the challenge events. The development focus is mainly on software design. *HARDWARE* The hardware for the challenge is standardised. Robot (TurtleBot2) 3D/Vision Sensor (Xtion/Astra) Laser Sensor (Hokuyo/RPlidar) Other ROS-based platforms are also accepted. Depending on the number of registered teams, the organisation *may have some platforms available* at the event. However, these can be purchased. The information is available at: 1. Turtlebot 2 - http://www.robocupathomeedu.org/robots/ 2. MARRtino - www.marrtino.org 3. Pepper - SoftBank Robotics - https://www.softbank.jp/en/robot/ *TEAMS* Teams consist of 2 to 4 students led by one mentor. We are expecting teams of undergraduate students from any European University. We advise the teams to assist the online classes - RoboCup@Home Education Workshop 2022, for that is necessary to apply in the following link, *until April 4*: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=rrP5m6Oa3kCI8l7-m5kevKr… For more details and competition rules, please visit http://www.robocupathomeedu.org *HOW TO PARTICIPATE* 1. Interested teams are required to apply by sending an email with the following information to the Organizing Committee home_edu(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu - Team Name: - Country/Region: - Affiliation: - Team Leader Name: - Email: - Category: Furthermore, it is required to inform in this email address if the team has already a platform for the challenge or not. The email subject should be: [@HomeEDU2022] (Your Team Name) According to the number of teams interested in participating in the RoboCup@Home Education @ 3rd European RoboCupJunior 2022, the organising team may restrain the number of teams. *IMPORTANT DATES* Challenge Kick-off: March 29, 2022 - 10:30am (GMT+0) Intention to participate: March 23 – April 10, 2022 Registration: April 18 – May 16, 2022 Please visit the official website for more information on: https://2022.robocupjunior.eu <http://2022.robocupjunior.eu> You can contact us via email: home_edu(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu Best Regards, RoboCup@Home Education Challenge 2022 @ 3rd European RoboCupJunior 2022 Organizing Committee

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RoboCup International Symposium 2022 - 2nd Call for Satellite Events
by Maike Paetzel-Prüsmann 21 Mar '22

21 Mar '22

* 2nd Call for Satellite Events * RoboCup International Symposium 2022 https://2022.robocup.org/symposium-call-for-satellite-events/ Submission of proposals: 3 April 2022 Notification to authors: 25 April 2022 Satellite Events: 17 or 18 July 2022 (RoboCup 2022: 11-17 July 2022) =========================================================== We invite you to organize a satellite event for the 25th RoboCup International Symposium, which will be held on 17 July 2022, in conjunction with RoboCup 2022 (11 July to 17 July 2022) in a hybrid setting. The RoboCup symposium is an annual event in which innovative, original research with relevance to areas of robotics and artificial intelligence is presented. The Symposium Program Co-Chairs would like to facilitate the organization of satellite workshops, focus groups, roundtable discussions, and other events that are related to RoboCup itself or the general aim of the RoboCup Symposium. This includes league-specific discussions about rules and/or roadmaps, shared infrastructure projects between leagues, as well as scientific workshops focusing on a particular research topic, among others. League committee members, as well as teams or individuals from RoboCup leagues participating in the Symposium, are invited to submit their proposals. The organizers of a satellite event are free to propose events between 2 and 8 hours in length to be held during or a day after the RoboCup Symposium (17 or 18 July) in a fully virtual, hybrid, or fully local format. IMPORTANT DATES =============== Submission of satellite events: 3 April 2022 Notification to authors: 25 April 2022 Satellite Events: 17 or 18 July 2022 (RoboCup 2022: 11-17 July 2022) SUBMISSION AND PROCEEDINGS ========================== Proposals will be evaluated by the Symposium Program Co-Chairs based on their thematic relevance to the RoboCup Symposium as well as their proposed schedule and required resources. Satellite events will not be included in the RoboCup Symposium proceedings. Proposals should be formatted following the LNAI author guidelines [0] and must be electronically submitted through the EasyChair electronic submission system [1]. Please follow the LaTeX template created by us by either downloading the template file [2] or by creating a private copy of this Overleaf template [3]. Submissions are limited to a 4-page extended abstract, excluding references. Each submission must include the following sections: * Name of the satellite event * A description of the format (e.g., discussion group, workshop, tutorial, invited talks, ...) and intended length of the event * Prefered date and time of the event (17 or 18; morning or afternoon, or the whole day [no lunch will be provided unless it’s on the 17th]) * A description of the content and aim of the satellite event * Names and contacts of all members of the organizing committee/group with one clearly marked person as the corresponding member of the organizing committee * The intended audience and the number of participants expected * Any resources required to organize the workshop After the acceptance of their proposal, organizers are expected to create a short description of their event as well as a website providing further information which will both be linked from the RoboCup symposium page on the RoboCup 2022 website. Organizers of accepted proposals for satellite events will receive a location for their event as well as other required resources (e.g., a projector), if possible. Apart from this, the organizers are responsible for organizing their event independent of the RoboCup Symposium. PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS ================== Maike Paetzel-Prüsmann, University of Potsdam, Germany Nuno Lau, University of Aveiro, Portugal Thanapat Wanichanon, Mahidol University, Thailand Amy Eguchi, University of California San Diego, USA CONTACT ======= robocupsymposium2022(a)easychair.org [0] https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu… [1] https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=robocupsymposium2022 [2] https://2022.robocup.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Symposium-Satellite-Eve… [3] https://de.overleaf.com/read/gqspxdtvpwsn

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European RoboCupJunior 2022 and European Middle Size League Championship 2022
by A. Fernando Ribeiro 16 Mar '22

16 Mar '22

*European RoboCupJunior 2022* and *European Middle Size League Championship 2022* Call for Participation https://2022.robocupjunior.eu 1 - 4 June 2022 Guimarães, Portugal (Multiusos de Guimarães) (GPS: 41.43547511153526, -8.3062854116528) ------ Leagues under competition (international teams) --------- Competitions are offered in the following leagues: - RoboCupJunior Soccer (Lightweight, Open, Entry) - RoboCupJunior OnStage (Advanced, Preliminary) - RoboCupJunior Rescue (Line, Line Entry, Maze, Maze Entry) - Co-Space Rescue Simulator - RoboParty Fun Challenge - SSL Junior - RoboCup@Home Educational - Middle Size League The registration opens *** 18 April 2022 ***. The registration closes *** 16 May 2022 ***. Visit https://2022.robocupjunior.eu/ to register your team. Details on the registration (fee, accommodation, rules) are available on the website. The Leagues Chairs: - SoccerJunior: Alexandrino Silva (soccer(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu) - RescueJunior: Luis Bernardino (rescue(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu) - OnStage: Rui Baptista (onstage(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu) - RoboParty Fun Challenge: Tiago Ribeiro (roboparty_fc(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu ) - SSL Junior: Laurent Verdier (laurent.verdier(a)elektronslibres.fr) - RoboCup@Home Educational: Inês Garcia (home_edu(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu) - Middle Size League: Vitor Pinto (vitorpinto(a)fe.up.pt) ------------ Important dates ----------------------------------- 18.04.2022 Registration opens 16.05.2022 Registration deadline - names, team, registration fee 01.06.2022 Set-up day Junior League teams 02.06.2022 Competition day (open to the public) 03.06.2022 Competition day (open to the public) 04.06.2022 Competition day, finals (open to the public) Please contact info(a)2022.robocupjunior.eu for any questions. See you all in Portugal at the *European RoboCupJunior 2022* and *European Middle Size League Championship 2022*. Best regards, Prof. A.Fernando Ribeiro (Chair and RoboCup Trustee) Organized by: Botnroll, Guimarães City Council, University of Minho

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Late call for applications to participate on-site and remotely in RoboCup 2022 Standard Platform League
by Stefan Seering 15 Mar '22

15 Mar '22

Dear SPL Teams, This email is a*late call for applications to participate *in RoboCup 2022 Standard Platform League in some capacity, either on-site as normal or remotely in a limited capacity. While we encourage all teams that are able to travel, even with a small number of member, to join us in Bangkok, the TC is aware that some teams have limitations on their ability to travel to Bangkok for the 2022 competition. Therefore, we would also like to encourage as many teams as possible to participate in RoboCup, whether on-site or in a remote setting. This is to maintain connections with the teams in our community and encourage teams to continue in their RoboCup research and software development. Teams competing on-site will be able to participate in the soccer competition and challenges. Teams that compete remotely, would be able to participate only in the following technical challenges: * Visual Referee Challenge * Dynamic Ball handling Challenge * Open Research Challenge Remote teams will be unable to participate in the soccer competition, or the 7 vs 7 Technical Challenge. This is because of limited on-site technical and volunteer support, along with an insufficient pool of robots. If you have questions about this late call for applications to participate on-site or remotely, please email the RoboCup TC (rc-spl-tc(a)lists.robocup.org). Additionally, if you are unsure about the teams status and unable to apply by the deadline, but may wish to make a late application, please express your interest in a late application by the deadline. Details of the call follow below: Late call for applications to participate in RoboCup 2022 Standard Platform League spl.robocup.org <https://spl.robocup.org/> Monday 11th July through Sunday 17th July 2022 Bangkok, Thailand 2022.robocup.org <https://2022.robocup.org/> RoboCup <https://spl.robocup.org/> is an international initiative that fosters research and education in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence through a variety of competitions (RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue, RoboCup@Home, RoboCupJunior) involving mostly multi-robot systems. RoboCup currently includes a number of different robot soccer leagues that focus on different research challenges. *The Standard Platform League (SPL)* is characterized by all the teams using an identical robot platform. Participating researchers focus on algorithmic development for fully autonomous robots, i.e., robots that operate with no external control. In this late call we encourage applications to participate in the RoboCup 2022 SPL either on-site in Bangkok or remotely. On-site participation The SPL at RoboCup 2022 will use V6, V5 or older versions of the NAO humanoid robot manufactured by SoftBank Robotics <https://www.softbankrobotics.com/emea/en/nao>. The SPL robot soccer team competition games at RoboCup 2022 will be played indoor and outdoor between teams of five robots on a 6m x 9m playing surface. Teams should be able to play on a randomly assigned indoor or outdoor field within one hour. The RoboCup 2022 SPL will host: * A 5 vs. 5 team competition as the main competition of the event. * A 7 vs. 7 competition. * A visual referee technical challenge. * A dynamic ball handling technical challenge. * A video analysis and statistics open research challenge. The 5 vs. 5 team competition will consist of a similar number of games for most teams compared to recent years. The structure from 2019 will be used to allow all teams to play games against teams with similar skill levels. See Appendix A.4 of the preliminary rulebook <https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/> for more details. The teams participating in the team competition should also compete in some of the additional technical challenges. The 7 vs. 7 side competition extends the ideas from the mixed team competition, and 1 vs. 1 remote challenge from RoboCup 2021 to a standardized 7 vs. 7 NAO V6 on-site competition. Its goal is to encourage more collaborative game play and offer a chance for teams to work together more closely. Participating in 7 vs. 7 is recognized as participation in a technical challenge. Additional technical challenges offered at the competition are the visual referee challenge and the dynamic ball handling challenge. The open research challenge aims to provide the SPL with long term performance statistics based on video analysis. Please note that the open research challenge comes with additional deadlines as mentioned in the rulebook. All challenges will be detailed further with the release of the SPL rules document. To assist in adoption of V6 Robots source code examples and documentation regarding V6 robots were published on the SPL website <https://spl.robocup.org/v6-support/>. One can also find example code working with V6 Robots in the code released by participating teams. These examples allow teams to adapt their competition code from recent years more easily to encourage use of V6 Robots. If you need access to the RoboCup NAOqi Image and the specific documentation, please write an email (mentioning your team affiliation) to rc-spl-tc(a)lists.robocup.org <mailto:rc-spl-tc@lists.robocup.org>. Remote participation in challenges For those teams that are not able to travel and compete on-site, we offer the possibility of remote participation in the following challenges: * Visual Referee Technical Challenge * Dynamic Ball handling Technical Challenge * A video analysis and statistics open research challenge Remote teams will be unable to participate in the soccer competition, or the 7 vs 7 Technical Challenge. Teams that wish to compete remotely may do so via a live stream of their technical challenge performance at their assigned time, similar to participation in RoboCup 2021. (For the dynamic ball handling challenge the TC is currently considering a limited on-site robot pool to allow teams to participate if they do not have 6 functional robots with which to conduct the challenge demonstration. However, a final decision on this has not yet been made.) Qualification All interested teams (whether participating on-site or remotely) must submit an original qualification document. For the qualification document to be considered, it must (1) be no longer than *6 pages* and (2) include all the following information in *sections with the specified headings*: 1. *Team Information:* the team name, the team leader(s), and the university/company affiliation(s) of the team 2. *Code Usage:* Acknowledge the team’s use of any other team’s code (1) previously from 2017 to present and (2) anticipated at RoboCup 2022. If code is used from other teams, is this code integrated into a code base that is mainly designed by the applying team? If the applying team does not use any other team’s code, state so. For further details, please have a look into the rule book, section A.1 <https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/>. 3. *Own Contribution:* Describe in detail the ‘research publishable’ significant advancements the applying team has made and is going to use at RoboCup 2022, in accordance with the rule book, section A.1 <https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/>. 4. *Past History:* provide game results in RoboCup Open competitions as well as main RoboCup competitions from 2018 onward. Include opponents and game scores from each competition in a table. State if the team plans to participate in any RoboCup Open competitions or friendlies prior to RoboCup 2022. 5. *Impact:* What is the impact of the team’s participation and research in RoboCup on (1) the SPL, (2) the team’s university/community? 6. *Video presentation:* Include a link to a video (maximum 5 minutes long, uploaded on the team’s web site or on some video server) that demonstrates the status of the team. The organizing committees use the video to determine the readiness of the team to compete effectively, and hence should focus on the team’s ability to play soccer. Teams who did not participate in the team competition at RoboCup 2019 or any challenge at RoboCup 2021 *must* include footage of at least one robot attempting to kick off and score (this footage must be captured as a single wide shot with no cuts). If robots from multiple teams are active in the footage (e.g., game footage), please include a textual overlay or additional document denoting which robots belong to the applying team for every scene. Videos of simulation contributions will also be accepted, but only when a real robot is unavailable. Preference will be given to teams that use real robots to show soccer skills in their video. 7. *Other:* Present any other information that you believe supports your application. If your application mentions more than one e-mail address, please specify which one should be used to contact your team regarding your application. Submission and Evaluation All applications with the (pre-)qualification material must be submitted by*13**th of April 2022*, by email to rc-spl-tc(a)lists.robocup.org <mailto:rc-spl-tc@lists.robocup.org>. Applications must not be sent to personal SPL TC/OC email addresses and must not contain video attachments. Note that applying serves as a statement of commitment to participate in the RoboCup 2022 SPL. The organizing committees are aware of the ongoing COVID situation and assume that all applications are subject to withdrawal due to COVID. Applications are not required to mention uncertainties related to COVID to avoid negative effects on future applications. We would rather encourage teams to plan optimistically and sign up with the possibility of withdrawing if situation requires it. For situations other than COVID: If you have doubts regarding the ability of your team to participate (due to funding, visas, etc.), please apply by the deadline but note this in your application. Declining to participate in any competition after the official early registration period has opened may negatively affect future applications (the later you decline, the worse it will affect future applications). Teams are encouraged to consider joint participation. Joint proposals will be judged on combined merit. Applications will be evaluated to consider a variety of components including: 1. Potential to play competitive games or participate in challenges at RoboCup 2022 (demonstrated ability to play soccer, previous results, etc.) 2. Contributions (and potential contributions) to league (code releases/papers, active in organization, developing own code, etc.) 3. Diversity (region, team make-up, unique characteristics, etc.) Late qualification decisions will be announced shortly after the late application deadline above. Robot Acquisition Teams who submit an intent to participate and become qualified will be eligible for potential future special robot pricing. Special robot pricing for team competing in RoboCup Events are still being discussed. Updates about special prices will be announced if offers and conditions are finalized. /RoboCup 2022 Standard Platform League Technical and Organizing Committees/ / /

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