ELSEVIER Robotics and Autonomous Systems 26 (1999) 233-234

Robotics and

Autonomous Systems

Upcoming Competitions for 1999 Robotics Competition Comer

Robin R. M u r p h y

The new year is upon us, and it's time to start plan- ning for the 1999 competitions. Here is a guide to the major autonomous robot competitions by date:

February 99: Autonomous Robot Football Tour- naments. These competitions consist of teams of Khepera robots playing soccer. One tournament so far has been scheduled for Munich, Germany, with more expected. http://www.dcs.qmw.ac.uk/RFC/SecondARFT.html

April 99: SAE Walking Machine Decathlon. This competition focuses on the design and construction of legged robots, with a secondary emphasis on intelli- gence. It will be held in Montreal, Canada. http://www.sae.org/STUDENTS/walking.htm

June 99: AUVS Aerial Robotics Competition. The 1999 competition is a continuation of qualify- ing rounds for the Millennial Event. It will be held adjacent to the Hartford Nuclear Site near Rich- land, Washington, USA sometime in June, 1999. http://avdii.gtri.gatech.edu/AUVS/IARCLaunch- Point.html

June 99: AUVS Ground Robotics Competi- tion. This outdoor robot competition will be held June 5-7, 1999 at Oakland University near Detroit, Michigan, USA. New bonus challenge rounds have been added to the evolving event. http://www.secs.oakland.edu/SECS_prof_orgs/PROF_ AUVSI

July 99: AAAI Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition. The competition will be held in con- junction with the Sixteenth National Conference on AI, July 18-22, 1999, in Orlando, Florida, USA. The events have not been finalized, but it appears that there will be three events ranging from an entry level "state-of-the-practice" task to a "grand chal- lenge." bttp://www.aaai.org will have links when available.

July 99: RoboCup-99. The robot world soccer cup originated by Sony and Japanese researchers will be held in conjunction with IJCAI-99 in Stockholm, Sweden, July 30-Aug 6, 1999. The competition has 5 leagues: simulator, small size, full-set small size (khepera), middle size, and legged. This year there is a mandatory pre-registration by Dec. 31, 1998. http://www.robocup.org

September 99: FIRA Robot World Cup Brazil 99. The robot world soccer cup originated by KAIST in Korea will be held in Holambra City, Brazil, Sept 14- 19, 1999. The competition has 5 leagues: MiroSot, S- Mirosot, NaroSot, RoboSot, and S-SheperaSot, where "S" stands for simulator. The MiroSot league is being divided into two categories: one with onboard vision and intelligence, and the other permitting the use of a global vision system, http://www.fira.net

TBA: AUVS Underwater Robotics Competition. The dates of the second underwater competition will be announced shortly and posted to: http://www.auvsi.org/auvsicc/auvcomp.htm

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Teams interested in participating in a competition should examine the websites and rules carefully in or- der to find a good match. Most websites have links to previous winning teams; team sites provide valuable information about what level of effort and funding is needed to produce a competitive entry. There are several questions a team should ask itself about a competition before registering:

Is the competition appropriate for the team's intellec- tual level and goals? Each competition has its own culture. Some organizers expect the competition to for- ward the state of the art research and facilitate research collaboration; a team which refuses to make presen- tations or discuss their approach may win but will be ostracized. Some competition announcements say one thing but in practice mean another. A quick review of the winning teams for past AUVS Ground Robotics Competitions shows that even though the rules make it sound like an AI or vision-oriented competition, the participants are generally from mechanical engineer- ing departments.

Another concern is how much faculty involvement is necessary? In the research-oriented competitions such as AAAI, AUVS Aerial Vehicle Competition, and RoboCup, successful entries tend to be either the result of thesis work in robotics or a small group do- ing project work in a series of directed courses. Less state-of-the-art events may be better suited to students with superb programming skills but less robot theory and less supervision.

Is the competition amenable to new teams ? Gone are the days when a winning entry could be hacked in a few days with purely reactive behaviors and sonars. Some competitions may require teams to spend years fielding a viable entry. Plus almost all events involve real-time computer vision, a technical challenge by it- self. The AUVS competitions are examples of events

where it is next to impossible to both build the hard- ware and complete innovative software within a year. New teams may wish to consider working in a simu- lator league first, then building robots.

Related to the amenability of a competition to new- comers is does the competition specif3.', restrict, or expect certain types of hardware? The various robot soccer events have size and computational restrictions, while AAAI is open to any robot. However, hardware competence is never optional. For example, an entry which cannot perform color region segmentation in the 30-60 Hz range is unlikely to be a contender in MiroSot and RoboCup events. Likewise, the most suc- cessful aerial vehicles in the AUVS Aerial Robotics Competition all had onboard GPS.

What's in it for the team? Mounting a team can be time consuming and costly. Very few competitions still offer travel scholarships or hardware discounts, and the amounts vary from year to year. Some events, most notably AUVS and the Autonomous Robot Football tournaments, offer cash prizes, Others such as AAAI emphasize publicity, guaranteeing winners an article in AI Magazine. RoboCup appears to be the leader in organizing high profile special sessions and workshops in international conferences.

For those interested in less research oriented compe- titions http://www.robohoo.com has links to other in- teresting competitions well suited for hobbyists and high school students, including the BEAM games. RoboCup will be starting a RoboCup-Jr. event in 2000, and the AUVS Aerial Robotics Competition continues to hold a high school league.

Robin R. Murphy is currently an associate protessor in the Computer Sciences and Engineering department at the Univer- sity of South Florida. She is co-editor of AI and Mobile Robots: Case Studies of Successful Robot Systems (MIT Press, 1998). Email: murphy@csee.usf.edu.