The RoboCup@Home league aims
to develop service and assistive robot technology with high
relevance for future personal domestic applications. It is the
largest international annual competition for autonomous service
robots and is part of the RoboCup
initiative. A set of benchmark tests is used to evaluate the
robots’ abilities and performance in a realistic
non-standardized home environment setting. Focus lies on the
following domains but is not limited to: Human-Robot-Interaction
and Cooperation, Navigation and Mapping in dynamic environments,
Computer Vision and Object Recognition under natural light
conditions, Object Manipulation, Adaptive Behaviors, Behavior
Integration, Ambient Intelligence, Standardization and System
Integration. It is colocated with the RoboCup symposium.
Mexico 2012: More shopping mall, more real-world action!
The world championships will
be in Mexico city in 2012. For local RoboCup@Home competition
please have a look at the main RoboCup
page to see if there is one near you.
RoboCup@Home documentary made by Andrew Quitmeyer. Check it out!"
Everybody with an autonomous
robot can participate. The @Home league consists of some tests and
an open challenge to demonstrate the abilities of your robot. To
participate in the open challenge you have to participate in at
least one test. The competition is in a real world scenario (see
below).
The
competition
The competition of
RoboCup@Home consists of tests which the robots have to solve. The
tests will change over the years to become more advanced and
function as an overall quality measurement in
desired areas. Suggestions for tests can be discussed on
the email list. Performance measurement is based on a score
derived from competition rules and evaluation by a jury.
Criteria of the tests are
listed below. The tests should:
include
human machine interaction
be
socially relevant
be
application directed/oriented
be
scientifically challenging
be
easy to set up and low in costs
be
simple and have self-explaining rules
be
interesting to watch
take a small amount of
time
Suggestions for new tests or
changes in existing tests should fulfill as many of these criteria
as possible. Suggestions can be mailed to the @Home email list
(see menu on the left).
The
Scenario
The ultimate scenario is the
real world itself. To build up the required technologies gradually
a basic home environment is provided as a general scenario. In the
first years (we started in 2006) it will consist of a living room
and a kitchen but soon it should also involve other areas of daily
life, such as a garden/park area, a shop, a street or other public
places.
Open
Challenge
One of the tests is an open
challenge where freely chosen abilities can be shown. Also, in the
open challenge proposals for future tests can be presented to the
league. According to the criteria of RoboCup@Home, a jury
consisting of team leaders will decide on the score awarded.
Finals
RoboCup@Home finishes with
the finals where the 5 teams with the highest scores can perform
in the scenario that has been set up. The teams are rated by a
jury consisting of roboticists and non roboticists, such as people
from industry, from human-machine interaction, from industrial
design, from the audience and the press. The ranking of the finals
determines the winner. In the finals there is less focus on
technical matters, since getting in the finals already means that
the teams are very good on the technical level.