IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2019 - 7

COMPETITIONS

Advancing
A
Journey Toward
Research
theatConvergence
the RoboCup
@Home
Competition
of Robotics
and Life Sciences
By Fabrice
EugenioJumel
Guglielmelli

oboCup (https://www.robocup
.org/) is an annual international
robotics competition, founded in
1996, that aims to promote
robotics and artificial-intelligence
research. The initial challenge was for a
team of robots to play soccer: it was the
first competition that used soccer games
to promote research and education. The
goal of RoboCup is as follows: "By the
middle of the 21st century, a team of fully
autonomous, humanoid, robot soccer
players shall win a soccer game,
complying with the official rules of the
Fédération Internationale de Football
Association, against the winner of the
most recent World Cup."
During the ensuing tournaments,
different soccer leagues were created
(depending on the robots' size and type
of locomotion). Later, it was determined
that the competition should include
additional robot aspects and involve
junior teams. The current major leagues
cover different challenges: soccer (RoboCupSoccer), rescue (RoboCupRescue),
logistics and industrial (RoboCupIndustrial), and domestic (RoboCup@Home).
RoboCup rules are reviewed annually by
each technical league committee and
discussed with participants and other
researchers in the field. Road maps are
discussed regularly and used as references for future rules.
RoboCup@Home (http://www
.robocupathome.org/) is the largest international annual competition for autonomous service robots, with 24 to 36 teams

competing. The league aims to develop
robot-service technology, in particular, for
future personal domestic applications.
The focus is on human-robot interaction
and cooperation, navigation and mapping
in dynamic environments, computer
vision and object manipulation, and adaptive behaviors. A set of benchmark tests is
used to evaluate the robots' abilities and
performance in realistic, nonstandard
home-environment settings (Figure 1).
A complete rulebook is available at
https://github.com/RoboCupAtHome.
Important modifications were applied
for 2019 to propose tasks that are more
comprehensible to the audience and
give newbie teams more opportunities

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2019.2908571
Date of publication: 12 June 2019

Figure 1. Robots are expected to perform in
realistic, nonstandard settings.

to handle various scenarios. The competition is organized in two stages, each
consisting of different specific tasks, and
ends with the finals. Setup days give
participants time to examine the arena
as well as the furniture and objects associated with the tasks. Challenge details
are kept secret prior to the competition,
and minor changes may occur in the
arena during the events to mirror situations that can occur in real life (a chair
can move from one room to another
but not to the sink).
Each stage provides a set of tasks
grouped in two thematic scenarios. The
housekeeper scenario features tasks
related to cleaning, organizing, and
maintenance (Figure 2), and the partyhost scenario focuses on providing general assistance to a group of guests. For
example, tasks for the housekeeper in
stage one are to clean up, store groceries,
serve breakfast, and take out the garbage
as well as act as a general-purpose service robot that can perform all of the
previous tasks and more on demand.
Party-host tasks include, for example,
carrying luggage, saying farewell to
guests, finding friends, acting as a receptionist, and serving drinks. During stage
two, the scenarios provide greater variability and uncertainty. More complex
manipulation tasks are required, for
example, during the clean-the-table task
(the Procter & Gamble challenge).
Another thematic challenge is the restaurant task, which is similar to serving
drinks in stage one but in a real restaurant without previous setup time.
During all the tasks, a new principle called ex deus machina has been

JUNE 2019

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

https://www.robocup.org https://www.robocup.org https://www.github.com/RoboCupAtHome http://www.robocupathome.org/ http://www.robocupathome.org/

IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2019