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What is RoboCup@Home?
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.
It was amazing!!!
It was an amazing competition this year! Many robots participated and showed awesome capabilities. For example, we saw real-time learning by imitation, person detection and recognition, real-time learning of the environment, robots pouring drinks, very good looking robots and a lot of people working passionately. We thank all the teams for participating.
Next year in Singapore we are going to top this year's event. One of the ideas is to go shopping in a real shopping mall! If you have ideas for a test, or you think we should change something, please share it on the email list.
The heroes of 2009
The real heroes of 2009
Who can participate?
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).
Next competition
The world championships are in Austria in 2009. For local RoboCup@Home competition please have a look at the main RoboCup page to see if there is one near you.
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. In 2009 we are hope to get to a real
supermarket setting to do some shopping!
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.
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