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[robotics-worldwide] [Meetings][News] RoboCup 2025 Virtual Robot Competition - Call for Participation
by Reyhaneh 28 Jan '25

28 Jan '25

*RoboCup Rescue Simulation Virtual Robot Competitions 2025* *Salvador, Brazil**July 15-21, 2025* https://robocup-rsvrl.github.io/ <https://www.robocup.org/leagues/27>https://2025.robocup.org *IMPORTANT DATES* Team Qualification Materials Submission Deadline..: Feb 21st, 2025 (23:55 GMT) Filling the intent letter form is mandatory. Qualified Teams Announcement…………....................…: Rolling basis till March 14th, 2025 Camera-ready TDP submission………....................….….: June 6th, 2025 If you are interested or considering participating please take the time to fill the RoboCup 2025 Virtual Robot Competition - intent letter form <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvXrsia1IbEk6lMGCfF1z_x6mk66zJ4hD…> as soon as possible, so that we can inform you about the latest developments and updates. *(1) RoboCup Rescue Simulation League and Virtual Robot Competition* ——————— The Virtual Robot Simulation competition aims to raise awareness about the complexities involved in search and rescue applications. It provides an objective platform for evaluating robotic implementations in environments that mimic real-world disaster scenarios. This competition also fosters collaboration among researchers, promoting the exchange of ideas and advancements in the field. In this competition, a generic urban disaster simulation environment is created on network computers. This virtual world is populated by robots who carry out search and rescue operations. These robots are designed to mimic the roles and responsibilities of the rescue team in the real-world to work together with the rescue team to reduce the disaster effects. Participating in the RoboCup Virtual Robot Competition offers a multitude of benefits. This competition is part of the RoboCup Rescue Simulation League, provides a unique platform for participants to apply and enhance their skills in AI and robotics within a simulated disaster environment. The Virtual Robot Competition is based on ROS/Gazebo, a sophisticated robot simulator. This platform allows participants to simulate multiple robots with capabilities that closely mirror those of real robots. It provides an opportunity to work with a variety of sensors and actuators, and to develop UAV and UGV robots using standard modules. The competition also addresses a wide range of research topics, including human-robot interfaces, autonomous navigation, sensor fusion, image processing, speech processing, 2D and 3D mapping, distributed planning, and distributed learning. By participating in the competition, individuals can gain hands-on experience in these areas, contributing to their professional development and potentially leading to advancements in the field of AI and robotics. In 2025, we will hold the competition in hybrid mode, so both remote and in-person options would be available for the teams. *(2) Intention of participation* ——————- If you are interested or considering participating please take the time to fill the RoboCup 2025 Virtual Robot Competition - intent letter form <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvXrsia1IbEk6lMGCfF1z_x6mk66zJ4hD…> as soon as possible, so that we can inform you about the latest developments and updates. *(3) Qualification material* ————————- Besides sending the intention of participation, please prepare before Feb 21, 2025, a Team Description Paper describing the most innovative contributions or scientific results your team is intended to provide. The TDP is limited to 8 pages and must be formatted according to the LNCS format: http://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gui… <https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/ln…> And the tex template file of the TDP can be found on the overleaf: https://www.overleaf.com/read/nrcfnpygskyx <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.overleaf.com/read/nrcfnpygskyx&sa=…> The Team Description Paper is an overview of the methodologies you use or intend to use to control your robots inside the Virtual Robot Competition. If applicable, include a reference to your latest publications. The qualification material should be placed on a dedicated web page on the team’s home page. Please include the link to the qualification material on the intention of participation information. *(5) Useful links* ———– - Virtual Robot Competition 2025 Rule (draft) <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z2XkqSYPFblGC6BFMBvZXZ9plrQCwEfiXETrjV0…> - Virtual Robot Competition Wiki <https://robocup-rsvrl.github.io/> - Virtual Robot Competition Server <https://github.com/RoboCup-RSVRL/RoboCup2022RVRL_Demo> - Official RoboCup Rescue Simulation website <https://rescuesim.robocup.org/> Kind regards, Reyhaneh Pahlevan on behalf of RoboCup Rescue Simulation Executive, Technical, and Organizing Committees

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RoboCup@Work 2025: Call for Participation
by Asad Norouzi 22 Jan '25

22 Jan '25

Call for Applications for Participation RoboCup 2025 – RoboCup at Work https://2025.robocup.org Venue: Salvador, Brazil Tuesday, July 15th through Monday, July 21st, 2025 RoboCup at Work: Competing for the Factory of the Future RoboCup at Work is a league of the RoboCup competition that replicates the use of robots in autonomous, industrial scenarios. It aims to promote research and development that enables the use of innovative mobile robots with advanced manipulators for cutting-edge industrial applications. Such applications include complex tasks ranging from manufacturing, automation, and parts handling to general logistics, as well as interaction with human workers. The RoboCup at Work league is characterized by an industrial environment. This consists of manipulation objects including nuts and bolts, arena elements such as shelves, bins, and platforms of different sizes, and networked automation devices like conveyor belts and drilling machines. The actual competition tasks to be performed in the environment are defined in a set of so-called tests. Each test addresses various mobile manipulation capabilities such as grasping, transportation, precision placement, and visual serving. The complete rules of RoboCup@Work as well as further technical details are (will be) posted on the RoboCup@Work website (https://atwork.robocup.org). Participation in the Competition All teams that intend to participate in the competition have to perform the following steps: 1. Submission of qualification materials including a Team Description Paper and a video of their robot performance. Details are below. 2. Final registration (qualified teams only) Qualification The qualification process serves a dual purpose: It should allow the Technical Committee (aka TC) to assess the safety of the robots a team intends to bring to the competition, and it should allow ranking teams according to a set of evaluation criteria in order to select the most promising teams for a competition, if not all interested teams can be permitted. The TC will select the qualified teams according to the qualification materials provided by the teams. The evaluation criteria will include: - Team description paper - Relevant scientific contributions/publications - The professional quality of the robot and software - Novelty of approach - Relevance to industry - Performance in previous competitions - Contribution to RoboCup at Work league, e.g. by Organization of events and/or provision and sharing of knowledge - The quality of the robot's performance of a task (selected by the team) shown in a video - Team website Team Description Paper The Team Description Paper (TDP) is a central element of the qualification process and has to be provided by each team as part of the qualification process. The TDP should at least contain the following information in the author/title section of the paper: - Name of the team (title) - Team members (authors), including the team leader - Link to the team website - Contact information The body of the TDP should contain information on the following: - the focus of research/research interest - a description of the hardware, including an image of the robot(s) - a description of the software, esp. the functional and software architectures - innovative technology (if any) - reusability of the system or parts thereof - applicability and relevance to industrial tasks - usage of components (software or hardware) developed by other RoboCup at Work teams The team description paper should cover the technical and scientific approach in detail, while the team website should be designed for a broader audience. Both the website and the TDP have to be in English. All TDPs must be written using the following template: https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/springer-lecture-notes-in-computer… Submission and Evaluation All applications with the qualification material must be submitted by February 23rd, 2025 through the following online form: https://forms.gle/hWNyHRHbzAZJbJgHA Qualified teams will be tentatively announced by March 10th, 2025. Important Links of RoboCup@Work League Official Website: https://atwork.robocup.org Discord: https://discord.gg/WaBHRdZq LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14158849/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/communities/1606361981937754115 Mailing List: https://lists.robocup.org/mm/lists/rc-work.lists.robocup.org/ Regards, RoboCup@Work EC/TC/OC

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[meetings] [news] 2nd CfP: The 4th Benchmark for Autonomous Robot Navigation (BARN) Challenge -- ICRA 2025 Competition
by Xuesu Xiao 22 Jan '25

22 Jan '25

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 <mailto:xiao@gmu.edu> https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/ https://robotixx.cs.gmu.edu/

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RoboCup SPL Call for Participation 2025 - Deadline Reminder
by Tom Ellis 16 Jan '25

16 Jan '25

Call for Participation Reminder RoboCup 2025 Standard Platform League Hi RoboCuppers, Just a quick reminder that all applications for the 2025 RoboCup SPL Competition, with the relevant qualification material, must be submitted by 17th of February 2025, just over 1 month from now! Full Application Details can be found at spl.robocup.org/call-for-participation-2025<https://spl.robocup.org/call-for-participation-2025/> Tom Ellis, on behalf of the RoboCup 2025 Standard Platform League Technical and Organizing Committees

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Offer of Support for RoboCup-related community-building workshops
by alexarossi＠gmail.com 14 Jan '25

14 Jan '25

Dear RoboCuppers, The RoboCup Board of Trustees would like to encourage the RoboCup community to organize community-building workshops, and robot competitions, at major conferences, on topics of common interest to multiple RoboCup leagues that are also of high interest to people outside the RoboCup community. The objectives are to 1. foster cross-league interaction among RoboCuppers; and 2. increase the exposure of the RoboCup community, with the possible side effect of drawing in new participants. Many large academic conferences (e.g. ICRA, IROS, AAAI, IJCAI, ICML, NeurIPS, and many others) have established workshop sessions programs and competition tracks that would be fine targets for this endeavour such a workshop. Some organizations also run standalone workshop/symposium series (e.g. AAAI Fall/Spring symposia). And smaller, more specialized conferences with a focussed audience related to RoboCup could also be good targets. If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity, send a short proposal to [RoboCup Sponsored Projects...] with the following information: * Workshop/Competition topic * Workshop/Competition venue * Workshop/Competition organizers, including the RoboCup leagues they represent (not all organizers need to be from the RoboCup community) * Brief description which RoboCup league(s) the research topic would benefit, and how * Brief description of how researchers from the broader scientific community will be encouraged to participate Due to budget constraints, a limited number of proposals will be approved for support. If your proposal is approved for support and is accepted by the venue, RCF will provide a discretionary budget to be used in support of the workshop for purposes such as (but not necessarily limited to): * Best paper/Best student paper awards (workshops) OR Best team award (competitions) * Travel support for invited speakers/organizers/participants * Workshop/tutorial logistics and materials (e.g., competition small arena builds, shipping of robots, etc.) The proposal can be submitted as a single PDF at the following link: https://cloud.robocup.org/s/ELJrf379yXTa6nM <https://cloud.robocup.org/s/ELJrf379yXTa6nM> Any further questions and information should be emailed to Alessandra Rossi [alexarossi(a)gmail.com <mailto:alexarossi@gmail.com>] best regards Alessandra -- Alessandra Rossi, PhD Assistant Professor Fellow of the Higher Education Academy Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies - D.I.E.T.I. University of Naples Federico II Via Claudio, 21, 80125 - Naples, Italy w-page:https://alessandrarossi.net e-mail address:alessandra.rossi@unina.it e-mail address:a.rossi@herts.ac.uk X: @alhandra81

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Call for Nominations: 2025 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award
by Nicholas Mattei 07 Jan '25

07 Jan '25

[Apologies for Multiple Postings] Nominations are solicited for the 2025 ACM SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award. This award is made for excellence in research in the area of autonomous agents. It is intended to recognize researchers in autonomous agents whose current work is an important influence on the field. The award is an official ACM award, funded by an endowment created by ACM SIGAI from the proceeds of previous Autonomous Agents conferences. The recipient of the award will receive a monetary prize and a certificate, and will be invited to present a plenary talk at the AAMAS 2025 conference. How to Nominate Anyone can make a nomination. Nominations should be made by filling out the below google form, and should consist of a short (< 1 page) statement that emphasizes not only the research contributions that the individual has made that merit the award but also how the individual’s current work is an important influence on the field. NOTE: a candidate can only be considered for the award if they are explicitly nominated. If you believe that someone deserves the award, then NOMINATE THEM — don’t assume that somebody else will! For any questions please contact Edith Elkind (Award Chair, <eelkind(a)gmail.com>edith.elkind(a)northwestern.edu) or Nicholas Mattei (SIGAI Vice Chair, nsmattei(a)gmail.com). Nomination Link: https://forms.gle/jud5hniSWtkrENqZ7 <https://forms.gle/jud5hniSWtkrENqZ7> Important Dates - 15 January 2025 — Deadline for nominations - 15 February 2025 — Announcement of winner - 19-23 May 2025 — AAMAS-2025 conference in Detroit, Michigan, USA -- *Nicholas Mattei* Associate Professor, Tulane University nsmattei(a)tulane.edu | www.nickmattei.net Stanley Thomas Hall | 305B +1 504 865 5782 Department of Computer Science Tulane University 6823 St Charles Ave New Orleans, LA 70118

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Call for Participation: RoboCup2025 Middle Size League
by 刘斐 02 Jan '25

02 Jan '25

Call for Participation  RoboCup 2025 Middle Size League July 15 to 21, 2025 (Salvador, Brazil) https://2025.robocup.org We would like to invite all MSL teams to participate in the 2025 RoboCup MSL World Championships. If you are interested to participate, please take the time to pre-register your team for the RoboCup 2025 MSL competitions.  1)    Pre-registration  For the pre-registration please send an e-mail to rc-msl-oc(a)lists.robocup.org and liufei(a)caa.org.cn containing the following data: ·   Team name ·   URL of the team’s home page ·   Name of the team leader ·   E-mail address of team or team leader ·   Affiliation ·   Country ·   Link to the qualification materials  Please send more information about teams to introduce them better on MSL website(https://msl.robocup.org/teams). Sending following information would be optional: ·   Logo ·   Profile (Describe team with at most 150 words). ·   Most research topics (up to 6 topics)   2)    Qualification materials  Please note that, according to the rules, the evaluation of some parts of the qualification materials will contribute to the scientific challenge final result.  By the time of pre-registration, please have ready the following qualification materials:  a)    A Team Description Paper describing the most innovative contributions or scientific results (the TDP is limited to 8 pages and must be formatted according to the LNCS format: http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0). b)    A list of 5 scientiﬁc papers published during the last 5 years of the team which are related to RoboCup. Abstracts of these papers and a complete reference to each paper must also be submitted. When more papers are submitted, only the first 5 will be considered. c)    A list of results and awards obtained by the team in the last 3 years. d)    A video showing the capabilities of the team’s robots (the maximum duration of the video is 60 seconds; if the submitted video is longer than 60 seconds, only the first 60 seconds will be considered for evaluation). e)    A list of contributions of the team to the RoboCup MSL community. f)     Declaration if the team will be part of a mixed team. g)    A mechanical and electrical description together with a software flow chart. h)   List of MAC Addresses used by the team, with explicit indication of those that will be used for wireless communication and their type: robots or development computers. All other MAC addresses will be blocked. (Modifications are allowed before the competition, no later than July 8, 2025.) i)    List of size and weight of the robots (If there are many different robots, please give the data for each type separately. Modifications are allowed before the competition, no later than July 8, 2025.): Dimensions: Length*Width*Height(cm) Weight: (kg)  For being able to participate in the RoboCup competition, teams have to ensure, at least, the minimum cumulative following criteria: ·   Demonstrate in the video that they are able to perform the basic actions to be able to play. ·   Produce a Team Description Paper (TDP) according to the above definition. ·   Obtain a minimum of 50 points in the overall qualification procedure.  The details regarding the qualification materials are contained in the rules and regulations document available at https://msl.robocup.org. Please read it thoroughly.  The qualification materials should be placed in a dedicated page of the team's web page. Please include the link to the qualification materials in the pre-registration information. 3)    Important dates  ·   Deadline for pre-registration and submission of the qualification materials: February 28, 2025 ·   Announcement of qualified teams: March 15, 2025  4)    Rules  The rules and regulations for the RoboCup 2025 Middle Size League had been published at: https://msl.robocup.org/rules  The updated rules and regulations had been released by December 31, 2024   5)    Publication  Please note that after the announcement of the qualified teams the qualification materials of the qualified teams will be made publicly available. Therefore, teams applying for participation, grant the right of publication of their qualification materials to the MSL league(MAC addresses are an exception and should remain private).   6)    Plagiarism  Plagiarism, loosely the unattributed use of other peoples' words, code and ideas (see “https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/plagiarism/plagiarism.html” for a more detailed description) is not tolerated in the RoboCup community.  The teams and team members that plagiarize other 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.   7)   Waiver of the team fee for NEW Teams  For the 2025 International RoboCup competition, NEW major teams can apply for team fee waiver. A NEW team is defined as a team all of whose team members have never participated in an annual international RoboCup competition. The waiver concerns only the team fee and does not imply any waiver of fees for team members.   The 2025 MSL Organizing and Technical Committees Fei Liu OC Chair, Middle Size League, RoboCup 2025  

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Last Call for Early-Bird Registration: Robotics Developer Masterclass – Spring Batch 2025
by Sonia W 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Greetings all, This is a kind reminder that early bird registration for the Robotics Developer Masterclass <https://www.theconstruct.ai/robotics-developer/?utm_source=robocup_worldwid…>Spring Batch - 2025 is coming to a close on December 31st, 2024. - Name: Robotics Developer Masterclass - Class: Spring Batch - Program Start Date: March 3rd, 2025 - Registration link: roboticsdeveloper.ai <https://www.theconstruct.ai/robotics-developer/?utm_source=robocup_worldwid…> - Program Fee: €1000/month, with an *early. bird registration discount of €900/month* available until December 31st, 2024. The Robotics Developer Masterclass is a comprehensive online learning program designed to provide individuals starting from zero with the necessary skills and knowledge to pursue a career in robotics development. Below are some key details of the Masterclass: *Program Highlights:* - 6-Month Training Period: Divided into 6 phases, each focusing on developing specific, in-demand robotics skills through hands-on projects. - 3-Month Internship: Gain real-world experience with leading robotics companies, applying your skills in industry settings. - 3-Month Job Hunting Program: Receive step-by-step guidance, from resume building to interview preparation, to help you land your new career in robotics. - Hands-on Learning: Engage with both simulated and real robots to develop practical, actionable robotics skills. - Comprehensive Curriculum: Covers everything from fundamental programming techniques to advanced planning and control algorithms. - Robotics Portfolio: Showcase your work through a professional online portfolio, integrating all projects and code for potential employers to view. - LinkedIn Certificate: Earn a certificate to enhance your professional profile and demonstrate your newly acquired robotics expertise. *What you will learn:* - ROS1 and ROS 2 - C++ for Robotics - Python for Robotics - Linux for Robotics - Math for Robotics - Collaborative Software Development with Git - Robot Modeling with URDF - Robot Frame Transformations with TF ROS 2 - Create robot simulations with Gazebo (Ignition) - Robot Navigation with ROS 2 (Nav2) - Robot Perception - Object Manipulation - Build Robot Controllers (ros2_control) - Kinematics of Mobile Robots and Arm Robots - Robot Dynamics - Kalman Filters - Path Planning Algorithms - Program web interfaces for Robot Ap - Docker for Robotics - Automate Development Tasks with Jenkins - Continuous Integration (CI) - Design, Develop, and Present, from Zero, a Complete Robotics Project For more details please check roboticsdeveloper.ai <https://www.theconstruct.ai/robotics-developer/?utm_source=robocup_worldwid…> . If you have any questions or require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at info(a)theconstruct.ai. -- [image: Logo] <https://www.theconstruct.ai/> [image: Logo] Sonia Wang Masterclass Success Advisor | The Construct E: rjun(a)theconstruct.ai | theconstruct.ai [image: Banner] <https://www.theconstruct.ai/robotics-developer/?utm_source=email&utm_medium…>

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RoboCup official social media channels
by Maike Paetzel-Prüsmann 27 Dec '24

27 Dec '24

Hej RoboCuppers, one of the goals of the RoboCup Federation for 2025 is to increase our public outreach on social media. We would both like to get information out to the general public and inform them about robotics and AI research, but we would also like to connect with the scientific community outside of RoboCup more. To grow our social media presence, we need your help! Follow our accounts, like & share our posts with your own network. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robocup.org/ Instagram (new): https://www.instagram.com/robocup.official/ X: https://x.com/robocup_org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/robocup-org YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@robocupFederation (new content planned for 2025!) We have just gotten started to revive the accounts and created new ones, and we have more content planned for 2025. So stay tuned, and thanks for following, liking and sharing our posts already - any engagement helps! Cheers Maike

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RoboCup SPL Call for Participation 2025
by Tom Ellis 17 Dec '24

17 Dec '24

Call for Applications for Participation RoboCup 2025 Standard Platform League spl.robocup.org<https://spl.robocup.org/> Tuesday 15th July through Monday 21th July 2025 Salvador, Brazil 2025.robocup.org<https://2025.robocup.org/> RoboCup<https://www.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, RoboCupIndustrial, RoboCupJunior) involving mostly multi-robot systems. RoboCupSoccer 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 in the main competition while developing individual skills measured in various technical challenges. The SPL robot soccer team competition games at RoboCup 2025 will be played between teams of fully autonomous NAO robots. Participating teams may use V6, V5 or older versions of the NAO humanoid robot manufactured by Aldebaran<https://www.aldebaran.com/en/nao>. Teams should be able to play on a randomly assigned field within one hour. The RoboCup 2025 SPL will host a soccer team competition, several technical challenges and introduce longterm leaderboards, detailed below. The soccer team competition will consist of a number of games that is similar to recent years for most teams. The draft rule book for 2025 is available on on the downloads page<https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2025>. The league operates two divisions: Champions Cup (CC) and Challenge Shield (CS). Teams in the Champions Cup division will compete in matches with up to 7 robots per team. Teams in the Challenge Shield division will compete in matches with up to 5 robots per team. All teams are encouraged to compete in one or more challenges in addition to the main soccer competition. There will be several challenges in 2025 in addition to the main soccer team competition: · The ’KICKin & Rollin’ Challenge, a standard out-of-game technical challenge designed to encourage teams to develop the best way to kick a rolling ball. · An open research challenge will be held to showcase innovations that contribute to the growth, development, and improvement of the league, beyond the core competition objectives. · There is a planned cross-league challenge to be conducted with the cooperation of the humanoid-league, similar to the 2021 passing challenge, additional details to follow as they are finalised. · Starting in 2025, several long-term leaderboards will be introduced to track and compare team performances across key skills over multiple years. These leaderboards aim to motivate teams to improve in specific areas deemed valuable by the league and to compile a record of the top-performing components and skills. More details regarding the challenges are given in the rule book<https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2025> Joining the League The league is always ready to welcome new teams. If you are considering joining: the league has prepared information for you<https://spl.robocup.org/joining-robocup-spl/> to support you in your first steps. We encourage you to contact the organizing committees and other teams if you have questions. To assist in adoption of NAO 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 for V6 robots in the code released by participating teams. If you need access to the RoboCup NAOqi Image and the specific documentation, please write an email (mentioning your team affiliation and plans) to rc-spl-tc(a)lists.robocup.org<mailto:rc-spl-tc@lists.robocup.org>. Qualification All interested teams that are not pre-qualified must apply by sending an email to the Technical Committee (see below). A valid application must contain: 1. Team Description Paper: See below. The TDP must be attached as PDF file to the email. 2. Preference to compete in the Champions Cup or Challenge Shield: State whether you prefer to compete in CC or CS. If you prefer to compete in CS, please state if you would accept an assignment to CC to balance the competition. 3. 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 2024 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. 4. Robot purchase plans: State how many NAO robots your team plans to buy this year. Pre-Qualification Teams that finished in the top 3 of either the Champions Cup or Challenge Shield divisions or finished in the top 5 of the technical challenge at RoboCup 2024 are pre-qualified for RoboCup 2025, if they submit a valid application as detailed below. The following teams can make use of pre-qualification: · Bembelbots · B-Human · HTWK Robots · Nao Devils · RedbackBots · RoboEireann · R-ZWEI KICKERS · SPQR Team · WisTex United A valid application for pre-qualified teams must contain all of the content mentioned above, without the need to provide a video presentation. If a joint 2024 team splits, only one team can be pre-qualified for 2025 (please indicate which one). Team Description Paper Both regular and pre-qualified teams must submit a team description paper (TDP) attached as PDF file to their application email. For the TDP to be considered, it must: · be named according to the pattern SPL_2025_TDP_<TeamName>.pdf · be formatted according to the Springer LNCS author guidelines <https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu…> . · be no longer than 8 pages (including references). · be structured in the following sections with the specified headings: 1. Team Information: · team name (the one true spelling, considering capitalization, spaces, hyphens, etc.) · team leader(s) · team contact email address · team website URL (if available) · country of origin · university/company affiliation(s) of the team 2. Code Usage: Acknowledge the team’s use of any other team’s code (1) previously from 2020 to present and (2) anticipated at RoboCup 2025. 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/#2025>. 3. Own Contribution: Describe in detail the ‘research publishable’ significant advancements the applying team has made and is going to use at RoboCup 2025, in accordance with the rule book, section A.1<https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2025>. 4. Unpublished Results: Provide game results in RoboCup Regional Open competitions as well as main RoboCup competitions from 2020 onward that are not already published on the SPL website<https://spl.robocup.org/>. 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 2025. 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. Other: Present any other information that you believe supports your application. Please note that the TDP is not a peer-reviewed publication and will not appear in any collection apart from the RoboCup TDP archive<https://tdp.robocup.org/>. Qualification for Regional Opens Only Teams may also submit a short intent to participate in a regional open if they do not wish to participate in the 2025 RoboCup competition. Although teams may participate in regional opens without submitting this intent to participate, teams who submit an intent to participate and become qualified may be eligible for future special robot pricing. Special robot pricing for teams competing in RoboCup Events are still being discussed. Updates about special prices will be announced as soon as offers and conditions are finalized. Teams must submit the following information by 17th of February 2025: (1) The team name, leader(s), and the university/company affiliation(s) of the team and (2) a short statement describing the status/progress of the team. A link to a short video showing robot soccer behaviours and/or game play (using robots or in simulation) may be included if available. Submission and Evaluation All applications with the (pre-)qualification material must be submitted by 17th of February 2025, by email to rc-spl-tc(a)lists.robocup.org<mailto:rc-spl-tc@lists.robocup.org>. Please use a subject matching the pattern RoboCup 2025 Application <team name>. Applications must not be sent to personal SPL TC/OC email addresses and must not contain video attachments. By submitting your application, you grant the SPL committees the rights to publish the TDP and application video / code release link. Note that applying serves as a statement of commitment to participate in the RoboCup 2025 SPL. 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 email. 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 by criteria which include: 1. Potential to play competitive games at RoboCup 2025 (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.) Since 2023 the competition rules require all teams to release the source code for novel contributions. This ensures that all teams can learn from good solutions and all teams are driven to make improvements each year. More details regarding code releases are given in the rule book<https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2025>. All teams can expect to be required to publish a contribution. As part of the application phase teams will be assigned into the CC and CS divisions. Assignments will be judged based on previous performance and application material. The organizing committees will do their best to honor teams’ preferences. However, the necessity might arise to assign teams into divisions against their preference. All teams applying for CC are expected to be able to compete in CS. Teams will be notified during the application phase if they are assigned into a division against their preference Qualification decisions, including alternate lists, will be announced by 3rd of March 2025. 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. Tom Ellis, On behalf of the RoboCup 2025 Standard Platform League Technical and Organizing Committees

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