December 2024 - RoboCup-worldwide

2nd Call for Participation for RoboCup Humanoid League – New Submission Deadline
by Reinaldo A. C. Bianchi 11 Dec '24

11 Dec '24

* 2nd Call for Participation – New Submission Deadlines * RoboCup 2025 Humanoid Soccer Competition https://humanoid.robocup.org/ July 15 - 21, 2025, Salvador, Brazil =========================================================== The RoboCup Humanoid League invites teams to apply for participation at the RoboCup 2025 Humanoid Soccer Competition in Salvador, Brazil. The Humanoid League will host competitions in the following categories: * KidSize: 40 - 100cm robot height (FIFA size 1 ball) * AdultSize: 100 - 200cm robot height (FIFA size 5 ball) For more detailed class definitions, please refer to the humanoid league home page at https://humanoid.robocup.org/ Teams do not need to provide a full robot team to apply for competing in the Humanoid Soccer Competition. The qualifying round of Drop-In games will be played with only one robot per team. Teams that cannot provide a full team of robots (four robots in KidSize and two in AdultSize) will be grouped to form a playable team for the main tournament games. Teams are also encouraged to form and apply as joint teams. Joint proposals will be judged on their combined merit. In case of a sufficient number of qualified teams, the sub-leagues (KidSize and/or AdultSize) will be divided into League A and League B. Teams are seeded into the leagues based on the results of an initial round of Drop-In games. For the qualification process, teams must provide the following material: 1) Robot Video --------------------------------------- Teams need to provide a video of their robot demonstrating the robots' autonomous soccer playing skills. The recommended skills needed for qualification are: * localization of unknown ball position, * walking ability towards the ball, * robot positioning at the ball for kicking, * kicking the ball towards the goal, * ability of getting up autonomously from a fall (KidSize only) We encourage teams to include in the video more complex and intelligent behavior such as demonstrating localization, and robots playing in a game, recordings from actual soccer matches are admissible. If possible, please provide footage that demonstrates the robot behavior without wires attached. The qualification video must be supplied as a link via YouTube. The maximum duration of the video must not exceed 5 minutes. The qualifying team is responsible to ensure that the video adheres to YouTube's TOS (especially in regard to music copyright) to prevent the video from being blocked for the reviewers. Teams that do not provide a qualification video or a viewable video will not be qualified! 2) Software Description --------------------------------------- During the registration process, a form will be provided to submit details about the algorithms used or anticipated to be used for the participation in the 2025 competition. Algorithms shall be described in such detail that they can be reproduced by other teams. If software from other teams or standard algorithms are used, references need to be included. If the algorithm has been adapted to be used in the competition, those deviations need to be described in appropriate details. The form will include questions in the following areas: * Walking * Vision * Localization * Team Communication * Behavior * Contributions to the RoboCup community, e.g. software releases, paper publications, provision of league infrastructure or data sets Responses to the questions are expected to reflect the current or anticipated status of the software during the RoboCup 2025 competition. If the software has not changed or no changes are anticipated to be made until the competition, teams may copy & paste a response from previously submitted material. 3) Extended Abstract --------------------------------------- A two-page extended abstract must be submitted. For teams which have previously participated in the Humanoid League, the extended abstract needs to: * include lessons learned from the participation in previous RoboCup competitions * highlight major problems that the team is trying to solve for the upcoming competition * outline the plans for the major changes that the teams anticipate to have implemented by the RoboCup 2025 competition * describe the implementation status of the changes planned by the time of submitting the application For teams which have never participated in the RoboCup Humanoid League, the Extended Abstract needs to pitch the scientific aspects of their humanoid robotic system and highlight their research interests. The Extended Abstract is limited to 2 pages maximum and must be submitted in PDF format. Extended Abstracts are designed to highlight the changes and scientific developments since the last RoboCup. Thus, we expect the usage of material from previous TDPs or Extended Abstracts to be minimal. If used, they need to be cited appropriately. Submissions of last year's Extended Abstract will be desk-rejected. The Extended Abstract must follow the LNCS format which can be downloaded from https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu…. Teams that do to follow the LNCS formatting and style guidelines will not be qualified. No exceptions to this rule will be made. 4) Robot Specification --------------------------------------- Regardless of the kid or adult size competition, a one-page specification (PDF) must be provided for each different type of humanoid robot used by the team that includes the following: * Robot picture * Robot name * Height of the robot * Weight of the robot * Walking speed in cm/s * Number of degrees of freedom and type of motors on each kinematic chain of the robot * Type of sensors used (incl. type of camera(s) and specific manufacturer part number (e.g. “6-DoF IMU” is NOT an acceptable description)) * Computing unit(s) * Materials (e.g. Torso aluminum, legs and arms CFRP) * Electronics (e.g. CM730 for communicating with servos) * Battery (e.g. 3S1P 2200mAh LiPo) * Open Source link if applicable * Other specs 5) Letter of Commitment --------------------------------------- A one-page letter addressed to the RoboCup Humanoid League Technical Committee including the following: * a statement committing to participate in the RoboCup 2025 Humanoid League competition, * a statement committing to make a person with sufficient knowledge of the rules available as referee during the competition. The letter must be signed (by hand or using a digital signature software as Adobe or DocuSign) by the team leader and submitted either as a JPG, PNG or PDF file. The TC may include the fulfillment of the statement of commitment of participation as well as the performance of the team's referee in previous RoboCup competitions into consideration for qualification. Each application to the Humanoid Soccer Competition will be reviewed by two members of the Technical Committee and two other teams applying to the Humanoid Soccer Competition. The combined reviewing score will decide whether a team qualifies for participation. Reviewing other team's material is mandatory for teams that want to participate in the Humanoid Soccer Competition. Failing to provide an adequate review by the provided deadline will have consequences for the team’s own qualification status. 6) Rules --------------------------------------- The current version of the rules may be found here at the Humanoid League website: https://humanoid.robocup.org/materials/rules/. We expect the final version of the 2025 rules to be published in early spring 2025. 7) Registration --------------------------------------- The following information is required for registration: * Team name * URL of the team's home page * Name of team leader or team contact person * E-mail address of team leader or contact person * Postal address of the team, team leader or contact person * Competition category: Humanoid Soccer Competition KidSize or AdultSize Please note that teams applying for participation in several categories must submit individual application material for each class, and pay the appropriate registration fee for each category. At least one team member must register on each team. Furthermore, teams in different categories must be able to compete, and guarantee to have members acting as referees available independently and at the same time. 8) Plagiarism --------------------------------------- Plagiarism, loosely the unattributed use of other peoples' words, code, and ideas is not tolerated in the RoboCup community. See the point "Publishing Ethics" at https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu… for a more detailed description. The teams and team members that plagiarize another peoples' work and present it as their own will be disqualified. For a first offense, the team and team members will be banned from RoboCup competition for two years (usually the current and next year). Harsher penalties will be applied to repeat offenders or extremely serious cases of plagiarism. A team may be disqualified at any time for plagiarism, even after the competition has started. RoboCup will not reimburse teams for any expenses related to their disqualification. 9) Online Submission --------------------------------------- All qualification material must be submitted online at: https://submission.robocuphumanoid.com/login Please be informed that the submission system has been updated and migrated to a new server. Consequently, the system has been reset, and all account information has been deleted. Therefore, it is necessary for all users to create new accounts on the system. 10) Important Dates --------------------------------------- Humanoid Soccer Competition * Submission system open: December 10th, 2024 * Submission deadline: January 31th, 2025 * Team Review Period: February 3rd - 7th, 2025 * Announcement of qualified teams: February 21th, 2025 11) Publication --------------------------------------- Please note that after the announcement of the qualified teams the qualified teams submitted material will be made publicly available on the Humanoid League website. Teams applying for participation, therefore, implicitly grant the right of publication of their qualification material to the Humanoid League. 12) Visa Process --------------------------------------- If you are a citizen of a country that needs a Visa for traveling to the Brazil, please start the VISA process as soon as you receive your notification of qualification. If you are not sure if you're eligible for a VISA-exempt, please consult the official website of the Brazilian government for information, at https://www.gov.br/mre/pt-br/assuntos/portal-consular/vistos/informacoes-so… (Information is in English below each paragraph in Portuguese). For more information about the humanoid league, please refer to the humanoid league home page at https://humanoid.robocup.org/ and join the humanoid league mailing list at: https://lists.robocup.org/listinfo/robocup-humanoid With best regards, Technical Committee of RoboCup Humanoid League 2025 Esta mensagem, juntamente com qualquer outra informação anexada, é confidencial e protegida por lei. Somente os seus destinatários estão autorizados a usá-la. Se você não for o destinatário, por favor, informe o remetente e, em seguida, apague a mensagem, observando que não há autorização para usar, copiar, armazenar, encaminhar, imprimir ou tomar qualquer ação baseada no seu conteúdo.

1 0

Invite to official RoboCup Discord server
by Maike Paetzel-Prüsmann 09 Dec '24

09 Dec '24

Dear RoboCup Community, we have set up an official RoboCup Discord server for our community now! Here is the invite link: https://discord.gg/dcFgqFTeCy The aim of the server is not to replace the individual Discord servers and messaging boards that the different leagues created - the idea is to complement them and create an easier possibility to communicate and build bridges between the leagues going forward. It should be a place for you to share your publications, discuss questions related to the next RoboCup events, and get connected with RoboCuppers across leagues. Anyone who is currently participating or interested in RoboCup, is planning to participate in the future or is a RoboCup alumni is welcome to join. Once on the server, please read the rules in the #rules channel and use the "Channels & Roles" on top of the channel list to assign yourself your roles related to the league(s) and region you participate in to see relevant content. Cheers Maike

1 0

[meetings] [news] The 2nd Earth Rover Challenge -- ICRA 2025 Competition
by Xuesu Xiao 07 Dec '24

07 Dec '24

Dear roboticists, do you want to compete with human gamers and AI agents in an around-the-world real life Mario Kart game? The Earth Rover Challenge is back at ICRA 2025!!! It is a first of its kind "AI vs Humans" distributed robotics competition where human gamers and AI models compete to solve real-world navigation challenges across the world, where your policies will be deployed in realistic goal-oriented navigation scenarios, potentially without known maps. As a participant, team, you'll get: -- standardized training data (>7k hours of real-world teleop driving data collected from 20+ cities) -- sponsored robot hardware, (2 x Earth Rover Mini (https://shop.frodobots.com/) for your own testing) -- access to global fleet of sidewalk robots for real-world evaluation of your models (in 20+ cities across 6 continents) -- compute resources assistance (8x H100s shared among teams) -- well-tested SDK (https://github.com/frodobots-org/earth-rovers-sdk) to connect your model to the robots In addition: -- no requirement to physically attend ICRA in Atlanta to compete (as your models will be hosted in the cloud while remotely controlling robots in various cities) -- anonymous entry allowed (i.e., only competition co-organizers will know your team's identity - mainly needed to coordinate testing trials before competition) For more context, this is what happened at the 1st Earth Rover Challenge held at IROS 2024 in Abu Dhabi (https://x.com/frodobots/status/1850426432142573937). Please fill out this form (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfu6HbS1-ppK5FVARtwDwTYs7FcH5SRL4x…) by January 10 2025 to express your interest in participating, and we'll be in touch with more info. Thanks, ERC2025 Organizing Committee -------- Competition Website: https://sites.google.com/view/the-earth-rover-challenge/ Organizing Committee Email: erc2025-organizers(a)googlegroups.com Organizing Team: FrodoBots (Michael Cho, Niresh Dravin, Santiago Pravisani), Google DeepMind (Jie Tan, Dhruv Shah, Ted Xiao, Wenhao Yu, Tingnan Zhang, Zhuo Xu), National University of Singapore (David Hsu), Georgia Tech (Naoki Yokoyama), George Mason University (Xuesu Xiao), Meta (Joanne Truong) --------- Thanks Xuesu ----------------------- Xuesu Xiao, Ph.D. -- Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science George Mason University xiao(a)gmu.edu https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/ https://robotixx.cs.gmu.edu/

1 0

RoboCup German Open 2025 - Call for participation - Major Leagues
by Ferrein, Alexander Antoine 04 Dec '24

04 Dec '24

RoboCup German Open 2025 Call for Participation - Major Leagues https://robocup.de/german-open NürnbergMesse, Frankenhalle, Germany The 22nd RoboCup German Open 2025 will take place from March 12-16 in Nuremberg. Nuremberg, the second largest city in Bavaria, combines medieval charm with modern vitality. The city is known for its iconic castle, half-timbered houses and old city walls and has great historical significance. The city flourishes as a cultural and innovative centre where history and modern life coexist in a wonderful way. Every regional and international Major team is cordially invited to take part in the event. ---------------------------- RoboCup Major Leagues (international teams) ———————————-------------- After the team setup on March 12th, the competitions will take place from 13 to 16 March 2025 in the following main leagues: • RoboCupSoccer Standard Platform League • RoboCupSoccer Humanoid League (KidSize and AdultSize) • RoboCupSoccer Small Size League • RoboCupRescue Robot League • RoboCupIndustrial Logistics League • RoboCupIndustrial @Work League • RoboCup@Home Open Platform League Registration opens *** December 15, 2024 *** Registration deadline *** January 31st, 2025 *** Late registration deadline (team members only) *** February 28th, 2025 *** When registration opens, visit https://register.robocup.de to register your RoboCup Major League team. Details on the registration (fee, rules, travel) are available on the website. Teams are advised to make their own accommodation arrangements as early as possible, as places are limited before March 13. ---------------------------- RoboCup Junior (German teams) —————————————————----------------------- From March 13-16, 2025 the final event of the German RoboCupJunior Championship will be held at RoboCup German Open 2025 in Nuremberg. The best teams that have qualified in the eight previous German qualifying tournaments will take part. The best German Junior teams in the 2025 German Junior Final will qualify for RoboCup 2025 in Brazil and for the European RoboCupJunior Competition 2025 in Italy. ----------------------------- Organization Committee ———————————————————————------------------------ • Oskar von Stryk (General Chair) • Stefan May (Local Chair) • Alexander Ferrein (German RoboCup Committee, Spokesperson Major) The Major Leagues Organizing Committee: • Heinrich Mellmann (Standard Platform League) • Maike Paetzel-Prüsmann (Humanoid League) • Nicolai Ommer (Small Size League) • Johannes Pellenz, Stefan May, Thomas Sander (Rescue Robot League & RMRC) • Sven Wachsmuth (@Home League) • Alexander Ferrein (Logistics League) • Christoph Steup (@Work League) ---------------------------- Co-located Events ———————————————————————————--------------------------- Parallel to the RoboCup German Open 2025 the first German Robotics Conference organized by the newly established Robotics Institute Germany (RIG) will take place. The conference will bring together the leading German researchers in AI-based robotics. Also in parallel, the Freizeit Messe will take place, which is one of Germany's largest leisure and lifestyle fairs. It attracts about 70.000 visitors each year. Many participants from both events are expected to visit RoboCup German Open 2025. ---------------------------- Important dates -------------------------------------------------------- • 2024-12-15 Major teams early registration starts • 2025-01-31 Major teams registration deadline, team member registration deadline • 2025-02-28 Late registration deadline (team members only) • 2025-03-12 Set-up day Major League teams • 2025-03-13 to 16 Competition days • 2025-03-16 Major and Junior finals The event is open to the public during all days from 9 am to 5 pm ----------------------------- Contact --------------------------------------------------------------- Please contact germanopen(a)robocup.de for any questions. See you all at the 22nd RoboCup German Open 2025! Best regards, German RoboCup Committee ---------------------------------- Acknowledgment -------------------------------------------------- The RoboCup German Open 2025 are supported by the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF) within the Robotics Institute Germany under grant number 16ME1001.

1 0

[meetings] [news] The 4th Benchmark for Autonomous Robot Navigation (BARN) Challenge -- ICRA 2025 Competition
by Xuesu Xiao 03 Dec '24

03 Dec '24

Submission Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYFw_BVg-7lpXNVxQIX_xQKpFrU2m4jrX… Competition Website: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge25.html Participation Instructions: https://github.com/Daffan/nav-competition-icra2022 Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2024: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/papers/barn24_report.pdf Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2023: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/papers/barn23_report.pdf Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2022: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/papers/barn22_report.pdf Dear roboticists, are you interested in agile robot navigation in highly constrained spaces with a lot of obstacles around, e.g., cluttered households or after-disaster scenarios? Do you think mobile robot navigation is mostly a solved problem? Are you looking for a hands-on project for your robotics class, but may not have (sufficient) robot platforms for your students? If your answer is yes to any of the above questions, we sincerely invite you to participate in The 4th BARN Challenge at ICRA 2025 (https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge25.html)! The BARN Challenge aims at evaluating state-of-the-art autonomous navigation systems to move robots through highly constrained environments in a safe and efficient manner. The task is to navigate a standardized Clearpath Jackal robot from a predefined start to a goal location as quickly as possible without any collision. The challenge will take place both in the simulated BARN dataset and in physical obstacle courses at ICRA 2025. 1. The competition task is designing ground navigation systems to navigate through all 300 BARN environments (https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN/BARN.html) and physical obstacle courses constructed at ICRA 2025 as fast as possible without collision. 2. The 300 BARN environments can be the training set for learning-based methods, or to design classical approaches in. During the simulation competition, we will generate another 50 unseen environments unavailable to the participants before the competition. 3. We will standardize a Jackal robot in the Gazebo simulation, including a Hokuyo 2D LiDAR, motor controller of 2m/s max speed, etc. 4. Participants can use any approaches to tackle the navigation problem, such as using classical sampling-based or optimization-based planners, end-to-end learning, or hybrid approaches. We will provide baselines for reference. 5. A standardized scoring system is provided on the website. 6. We will invite the top teams in simulation to compete in the real world. The team who achieves the fastest collision-free navigation in the physical obstacle courses wins. If you are interested in participating, please submit your navigation system at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYFw_BVg-7lpXNVxQIX_xQKpFrU2m4jrX… Co-Organizers: Xuesu Xiao (George Mason University) Zifan Xu (UT Austin) Aniket Datar (George Mason University) Saad Abdul Ghani (George Mason University) Peter Stone (UT Austin / Sony AI) Sponsor: Clearpath Robotics, https://clearpathrobotics.com/ Thanks Xuesu ----------------------- Xuesu Xiao, Ph.D. -- Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science George Mason University xiao(a)gmu.edu https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/ https://robotixx.cs.gmu.edu/

1 0