TU Munich/DLR team is RoboCup runner-up world champion
The Bavarian Bending Units team of TU Munich and the DLR attained the title of runner-up world champion in the Logistics League at the RoboCup World Championship of 2014 in Brazil.
The RoboCup was founded in 1997 with the primary objective of developing a robot soccer team capable of beating the current FIFA soccer world champions by the year 2050. In addition to robot soccer matches, additional disciplines have evolved over the years. Participants in the RoboCup in João Pessoa were also able to vie for prizes in the areas of Rescue, @Home, @Work, Logistics League and RoboCup Junior.
The Logistics League was launched in 2011 as a demonstration league and has been sponsored since then by Festo AG. It has been part of the RoboCup Major League since 2012 and is continually gaining in significance. Ten international teams from Brazil, Japan, Egypt, Mexico, Switzerland, France and Germany competed against one another this year from July 21 to 24.
The mission of the Logistics League is to solve logistical tasks within a dynamic production environment with three robots each (using Robotino 3 by Festo AG as the basic platform). Many challenges arise, not least due to the fact that two competing teams operate simultaneously in the same production environment. As reigning world champions, the Bavarian Bending Units shone in this class in particular through the efficient cooperation of the three autonomous robots including dynamic collision avoidance and localization. In the finals, they only had to concede defeat by the collaborative team of the Carologistics of RWTH Aachen University and FH Aachen. Next year, the Logistics League will switch to true modular production systems and work pieces.
In conjunction with the RoboCup, a symposium was held where new scientific findings from robotics and artificial intelligence were shared. This year’s guest speakers were Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus of MIT, and Sami Haddadin, professor at Leibniz University in Hannover.
