#RoboCup2024 – day by day digest: 20 July

The Customary Platform Soccer League in motion.

That is the second of our day by day digests from RoboCup2024 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Should you missed the primary digest, which supplies some background to RoboCup, yow will discover it right here.

Competitions continued throughout all of the leagues right this moment, with individuals vying for a spot in Sunday’s finals.

The RoboCup@Work league focusses on robots in work-related eventualities, using concepts and ideas from different RoboCup competitions to sort out open analysis challenges in industrial and repair robotics.

I arrived on the enviornment in time to catch the superior navigation take a look at. Robots should autonomously navigate, choosing up and inserting objects at completely different work stations. On this superior take a look at, warning tape is added to the world ground, which the robots ought to keep away from travelling over. There’s additionally a fancy inserting aspect the place groups should put an object that they’ve collected right into a slot – get the orientation or placement of the thing barely fallacious and the it received’t fall into the slot.

The RoboCup@Work enviornment simply earlier than competitors begin.

Eight groups are participating within the league this yr. Government Committee member Asad Norouzi stated that there are plans to introduce a sub-league which would offer an entry level for brand spanking new groups or juniors to get into the league correct.

I caught up with Harrison Burns, Mitchell Torok and Jasper Arnold from Group MiRobot. They’re based mostly on the College of New South Wales and are attending RoboCup for the primary time.

Group MiRobot from UNSW.

The staff truly solely began six months in the past, so ultimate preparations have been a bit nerve-racking. Nonetheless, the expertise has been nice enjoyable, and the competitors has gone nicely to this point. Like most groups, they’ve needed to make many refinements because the competitors has progressed, resulting in some late nights.

One notable function of the staff’s robotic is the bespoke, in-house-designed greedy mechanism on the tip of the arm. The staff word that “it has good versatile jaws, so when it grabs spherical objects it truly pulls the thing immediately into it. As a result of it makes use of a linear movement, in comparison with a whole lot of different rotating jaws, it has lots higher reliability for choosing up objects”.

Right here is a few footage from the duty, that includes Group bi-t-bots and Group Singapore.

Group b-it-bots tackle the RoboCup@Work superior navigation take a look at, choosing up a drill bit #RoboCup2024 pic.twitter.com/QfijZpxaOK

— AIhub (@aihuborg) July 20, 2024

Group Singapore inserting an object within the RoboCup@Work superior navigation take a look at pic.twitter.com/SvgLBOaVo7

— AIhub (@aihuborg) July 20, 2024

Within the Center Dimension Soccer league (MSL), groups of 5 totally autonomous robots play with an everyday dimension FIFA ball. Groups are free to design their very own {hardware} however all sensors should be on-board and there’s a most dimension and weight restrict of 40kg for the robots. The analysis focus is on mechatronics design, management and multi-agent cooperation at plan and notion ranges. 9 groups are competing this yr.

Motion from the Center Dimension League at #RoboCup2024.

Falcons vs Robotic Membership Toulon pic.twitter.com/GHcNLOx2nV

— AIhub (@aihuborg) July 20, 2024

I spoke to António Ribeiro, who’s a member of the technical committee and a part of Group LAR@MSL from the College of Minho, Portugal. The staff began in 1998, however António and most of his colleagues on the present staff have solely been concerned within the MSL since September 2022. The robots have advanced because the competitors has progressed, and additional enhancements are in progress. Refinements to this point have included communication, the detection system, and the management system. They’re happy with the enhancements from the earlier RoboCup. “Final yr we had a whole lot of {hardware} points, however this yr the {hardware} appears fairly steady. We additionally modified our coding structure and it’s now a lot simpler and sooner for us to develop code as a result of we will all work on the code on the similar time on completely different modules”.

António cited versatility and cost-effective options as strengths of the staff. “Our robotic is definitely very low-cost in comparison with different groups. We use a whole lot of previous chassis, and our options at all times go to the bottom value potential. Some groups have a number of thousand greenback robots, however, for instance, our imaginative and prescient system is round $70-80. It really works fairly nicely – we have to enhance the way in which we deal with it, nevertheless it appears steady”.

Group LAR@MSL

The RoboCup@House league goals to develop service and assistive robotic expertise with excessive relevance for future private home purposes. A set of benchmark exams is used to judge the robots’ skills and efficiency in a practical non-standardized house setting setting. These exams embody serving to to organize breakfast, clearing the desk, and storing groceries.

I arrived in time to observe the “stickler for the principles” problem, the place robots should navigate completely different rooms and ensure that the folks inside (“friends” at a celebration) are sticking to 4 guidelines: 1) there’s one forbidden room – if a visitor is in there the robotic should alert them and ask them to comply with it into one other room), 2) everybody will need to have a drink of their hand – if not, the robotic directs them to a shelf with drinks, 3) no sneakers to be worn in the home, 4) there needs to be no garbage left on the ground.

After watching an try from the LAR@House robotic, Tiago from the staff informed me a bit in regards to the robotic. “The aim is to develop a robotic able to multi general-purpose duties in house and healthcare environments.” Except the robotic arm, all the {hardware} was constructed by the staff. The robotic has two RGBD cameras, two LIDARs, a tray (the place the robotic can retailer objects that it wants to hold), and two emergency cease buttons that deactivate all shifting components. 4 omnidirectional wheels permit the robotic to maneuver in any course at any time. The wheels have unbiased suspension techniques which ensures that they’ll all be on the bottom always, even when there are bumps and cables on the venue ground. There’s a pill that acts as a visible interface, and a microphone and audio system to allow communication between people and the robotic, which is all executed through talking and listening.

Tiago informed me that the staff have talked to lots healthcare practitioners to seek out out the primary issues confronted by aged folks, and this impressed certainly one of their robotic options. “They stated that the 2 fundamental harm sources are from when persons are attempting to take a seat down or get up, and when they’re attempting to select one thing up from the ground. We developed a torso that may decide objects from the ground one metre away from the robotic”.

The LAR@House staff.

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