######################################################## Call for Participation WRS Future Convenience Store Challenge in CyberSpace (ICRA 2024 Competition)

May 13th - 15th, 2024 Yokohama, Japan ######################################################## The Future Convenience Store Challenge in CyberSpace, which is a new type of robot competition in cyberspace will be held at ICRA 2024, Yokohama Japan. Every regional and international Major team is cordially invited to take part in the event.

Visit https://sites.google.com/view/fcsc-cyberspace/home for more detailed information. Details on the registration (rules, software systems) are available on the website.

Organizers Tetsunari Inamura (Tamagawa University, Japan) Kazuyoshi Wada (Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan) Yukiyasu Domae (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan)

-------------- Future Convenience Store Challenge in Cyberspace ---------------- The aim of this competition is to enhance the quality of customer service provided by intelligent robots in environments such as retail stores and shopping malls, and to realize new forms of services. Specifically, the competition will assess the ability of robots to engage in natural and friendly communication in the context of customer service, as well as their capability for cooperative work with human staff. While conventional competitions have primarily evaluated physical functionalities such as object recognition, human behavior recognition, navigation, and object manipulation using real robots, there have been limitations in smoothly conducting competitions when focusing on intellectual interactions, such as intention recognition, natural language understanding, conversation control, and resolving ambiguity. Therefore, this competition aims to improve the quality of dialogue systems for service robots collaborating with humans in retail stores and to achieve new interactive service systems by focusing on tasks that emphasize dialogue intelligence rather than physical functionality. Furthermore, this competition features a unique structure where robots in cyber space engage in dialogue with humans in real-world environments. We also welcome proposals that contribute to the realization of new services through the integration of metaverses, digital twins, cyber-physical systems, and robotics. As such, the competition is designed based on the simulator "SIGVerse," which enables robots to engage in embodied and social interaction in virtual reality (VR) environments. Participants will benefit from focusing solely on software development without the need to develop physical robots.

-------------------------------- Important dates ------------------------------------ 2024-02-15 Team registration starts 2024-02-29 1st Call: Participation declaration 2024-03-14 First on-line meeting (tentative schedule) 2024-03-31 2nd Call: Participation declaration deadline (detailed team information should be fixed) 2024-04-17 Second on-line meeting (tentative schedule) 2024-05-13 Set-up day 2024-05-14 Competition Day 1 2024-05-15 Competition Day 2 , Award Ceremony

------------------------------ Competition Tasks -------------------------------------- This competition focuses on realizing robots that provide customer service in a conversational format at convenience stores. The emphasis is on the interaction capabilities with customers.

Task 1: Interactive Customer Service In this task, functionalities such as image recognition, human state recognition, and location identification, which involves recognizing the customer's location in the store, their gestures, and the placement of items, are not evaluated. Instead, the focus is on engaging in accurate dialogue with customers in response to ambiguous requests and delivering the desired products to them. Customers convey their desired purchases to the service robot and request them to be placed in the shopping basket, using both natural language expressions and image presentation. The participants should build software to realize such an intelligent dialogue system for customer service robots. The participants can use OpenAI API or related LLM tools; however, we cannot guarantee the Internet connection quality at the competition site. If you use such an external cloud calculator, you must manage the risk yourself. Please note that installing your own wireless router will not be allowed.

Task 2: Future Convenience Store Visionary Design In this competition, instead of completing tasks according to predefined rules, participants will propose possibilities for customer service and intelligent human-robot collaboration systems in future convenience stores in a presentation format based on their own creative ideas. The novelty, feasibility, and technical challenges of their ideas will be evaluated. The evaluation will focus on intelligent systems, service systems, and other systems mainly involving human interaction, which are expected to be useful in future convenience stores. Tasks involving no interaction with humans, such as autonomously cleaning toilets, are not included. Teams are encouraged to demonstrate the latest research and development on new approaches and applications related to customer service and employee support systems in a cyber environment. Specific examples of systems/proposals subject to evaluation include but are not limited to: - Planning systems that dynamically change and optimize the roles of service robots and employees. - Interactive service robot systems that recognize customer intentions and provide accurate services. - Training systems that determine appropriate training menus based on the skill levels of new employees. - Algorithms that observe customer purchasing behavior/movement paths and determine the optimal display layout. - Planning systems that dynamically change tasks to be executed based on the congestion status inside the store. Participants can use various types of systems and devices, including actual robot systems, but the primary focus of the final demonstration is on utilizing virtual spaces or Cyber-Physical Systems for the realization of intelligent service robots. Examples include digital twin systems supporting customer service action planning by intelligent robots and information presentation systems using wearable devices for efficient employee tasks.

------------------------------ Awards --------------------------------------------- Based on the ranking, the top three teams will be awarded certificates and prize money as follows: 1st place: 100,000 JPY + certificate 2nd place: 50,000 JPY + certificate 3rd place: 30,000 JPY + certificate

------------------------------ How to apply -------------------------------------------- Please access the following form to input detailed information about your team and team leader. The first deadline is the end of February; however, a tentative declaration of participation is welcome. We would appreciate you deciding the details of the team members by the end of March.

Required information - Team name - Name/Affiliation/Grade/Email address of the team leader - Optional information - Estimated number of team members - Past experience and achievements in AI/Robot competitions - Web page of the team

Please input the above information at the Google form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zkfZG-fcxOt_emXUkZRTylih8J45a70TcPnM2a7AmpA...

1st participation declaration: 28th Feb. (Tentative application is welcome) 2nd participation declaration: 31st Mar. (Confirmation of detailed team information)

----------------------- Contact. --------------------------------------- Please contact f**********l@ml.tmu.ac.jp for any questions. See you all at ICRA 2024 in Yokohama!

Best regards, ------------------------------------------------ Tetsunari Inamura Professor, Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, JAPAN TEL : +81-42-739-8679 URL : http://researchmap.jp/inamura/?lang=english Email : i*****a@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp