IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2023 - 103

COM P E TITI ON S
RAS New Quadruped Robot Challenges
Pushing the Boundaries of Robotics Research and Development
By Hyungpil Moon
Competitions have been a regular feature
at almost every ICRA and IROS
conference. So far, the organization of
competitions has been entirely up to the
conference organizing committee (OC).
The OC usually issues a call for competition
proposals; collects them; and
decides which competitions will be
hosted based on the conference site and
budget conditions. Many big companies,
such as Amazon, Airbus, and DJI,
have successfully organized competitions
at ICRA and IROS, some of which
have continued for multiple years and
have driven technological advances in
robotics. The OC may also organize
competitions based on the interests of
its financial supporters. Many such
competitions have been one-time
events, but the Autonomous Drone Racing
competition, which ran for four
years until it was interrupted by the
COVID-19 pandemic, was a successful
testbed for vision-based autonomous
navigation of quadcopters and attracted
par ticipation from many top-tier
research teams.
According to an e-mail survey sent
to ICRA, IROS general chairs, program
chairs, and competition chairs
(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/
d/1vhg08i4D3Ku5dQ50_OKORpiCskBO
-P3CEgpQkTadVdc/edit?usp=sharing),
conference organizers and attendees find
that competitions at ICRA and IROS
provide several benefits, such as attracting
young students and researchers;
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2023.3238203
Date of current version: 22 March 2023
1070-9932/23©2023IEEE
serving as a benchmark test platform,
especially for artificial intelligence
applications in robotics; increasing the
visibility of research work to conference
participants and media; and
providing a real-robot
demo outside the lab to
peer roboticists. Despite
these benefits, competitions
can be challenging
for both organizers
and participants. Organizers
may face limited
resources; high costs for
special facilities; registration
policies for competition
participants only;
logistical challenges; and
difficulty managing the
event without local supporters.
Participants may
also face logistical challenges;
registration fees; difficulty securing
funding for travel; and difficulty
publishing academic research papers
about competition results.
There have been challenges with
"
controlled environments. In both cases,
competitions can contribute to the development
of robotic technology; be educational;
help teams to grow; increase
the visibility of research to a broad audience
at the conference;
and serve as a technology
testbed.
The IEEE RAS CAB
THERE HAVE BEEN
CHALLENGES WITH
BOTH LARGE PRIZE
MONEY COMPETITIONS
AND SMALL
COMPETITIONS
WITHOUT ANY
MONETARY PRIZE.
„
both large prize money competitions and
small competitions without any monetary
prize. Large prize money competitions
are often proposed and organized
by big companies to attract top-notch
research teams to compete with highend
research robotic platforms in realistic
and challenging environments. On
the other hand, many smaller competitions
are designed for students who use
toy-like robotic platforms (which may
not necessarily be easy to work with)
and have smaller resources, often in
Competition Committee
has discussed ways
to reform competitions
at RAS's major conferences,
such as ICRA and
IROS, to support the OC
in organizing continuous
and sustainable competitions
that are structured
like a technical program.
The goal of these reforms
is to propose a robotic
challenge that is viable
in attracting talented teams from around
the world and supporting them over multiple
years to help them grow in futuristic
research fields while operating on a
limited budget. RAS should not compete
with existing challenges or competitions
but rather focus on proposing new challenges
that address real problems and test
advances in hardware and software technology
in practical realistic environments.
The competition should also promote a
sense of camaraderie among teams and
be exciting for a large audience, which
will increase visibility and draw stakeholder
interest, ultimately making the
competition financially sustainable.
(continued on page 128)
MARCH 2023 IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE
103

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1091-0716 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vhg08i4D3Ku5dQ50_OKORpiCskBO-P3CEgpQkTadVdc/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vhg08i4D3Ku5dQ50_OKORpiCskBO-P3CEgpQkTadVdc/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vhg08i4D3Ku5dQ50_OKORpiCskBO-P3CEgpQkTadVdc/edit?usp=sharing

IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2023

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