The 2010 ICRA Robot Challenge

The 2010 ICRA Robot Challenge will feature four events, including two new events. It will run continuously for the three days of the main conference (May 4, 5, 6), in Tikahtnu D/E of the Dena’ina Center. Please see the Robot Challenge Handout in your totebag for details on the exact times of the events.

The 2010 NIST Mobile Microbotics Challenge

In this new event for 2010 hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and IEEE RAS, microrobots on the order of the diameter of a human hair, face off in tests of speed and agility. The competition will consist of three subevents:

• The Two-Millimeter Dash: a two-millimeter race stopping at a defined location,
• Microassembly: inserting pegs in a planar framework, and
• The Freestyle Competition: emphasizing system reliability, level of autonomy, power management, and/or task complexity.

The Mobile Manipulation Challenge

The goal of this new event is to provide a snapshot of the state of the art in mobile manipulation, while encouraging collaboration and dissemination of ideas. The competition will consist of four subevents:

• Object Retrieval: clearing a toddler’s playroom, by retrieving all the toys and placing them in a large box,
• Loading a Dishwasher: clearing a dining table, placing all elements in a dishwasher tray,
• Manipulation Open: demonstrating a high performance in a mobile manipulation task typically performed in an indoor human environment, and
• Small Scale Manipulation: the first of two parts designed for “tabletop” robots playing chess. The second part will be held at AAAI 2010 in Atlanta, GA.

The Planetary Robotic Contingency Challenge

This event simulates an unexpected problem occurring at a planetary habitat, where a robotic solution must be quickly developed and deployed, using only existing resources. The intent of this event is to develop versatile robotic systems and software that can be adapted quickly to address unexpected events. Since humans are present, a natural solution to realistic unexpected events would exploit human creativity and human-robot interaction. The competition drives not only the development of versatile robotic hardware and on-board software, but also the design and development of programming and assembly tools capable of rapidly implementing a wide variety of capabilities. Since tele-operation is not precluded for this event, the development of effective user interfaces is another expected outcome.

The Virtual Manufacturing Automation Challenge

This event simulates a manufacturing plant. Participants will utilize multiple simulated robot arms and forklifts (simulated in USARSim) to autonomously load and move pallets. A Kuka robotic arm will be on site with an identical API as the virtual arm. Code that successfully completes the mixed palletizing elemental test will run on the real hardware. This event is intended to showcase multi-vehicle cooperation and autonomous mobility in constricted spaces. The event will be run with no human intervention and remote participation will be possible.