Call for Applications for Participation

RoboCup 2024 – RoboCup at Work

https://2024.robocup.org

Venue: Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Monday, July 15th through Monday, July 22nd, 2024

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 March 3rd, 2024 through the following online form:

https://forms.gle/iaJnpiWKjCXpCnC49

Qualified teams will be tentatively announced by March 18th, 2024.

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