Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Springer Handbook of Robotics pp 1759–1788Cite as

Robotics Competitions and Challenges

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Springer Handbooks ((SHB))

Abstract

This chapter explores the use of competitions to accelerate robotics research and promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (GlossaryTerm

STEM

) education. We argue that the field of robotics is particularly well suited to innovation through competitions. Two broad categories of robot competition are used to frame the discussion: human-inspired competitions and task-based challenges. Human-inspired robot competitions, of which the majority are sports contests, quickly move through platform development to focus on problem solving and test through game play. Task-based challenges attempt to attract participants by presenting a high aim for a robotic system. The contest can then be tuned, as required, to maintain motivation and ensure that the progress is made. Three case studies of robot competitions are presented, namely robot soccer, the UAV challenge, and the GlossaryTerm

DARPA

(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) grand challenges. The case studies serve to explore from the point of view of organizers and participants, the benefits and limitations of competitions, and what makes a good robot competition.

This chapter ends with some concluding remarks on the natural convergence of human-inspired competitions and task-based challenges in the promotion of STEM education, research, and vocations.

figure a

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   269.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   349.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Abbreviations

2-D:

two-dimensional

3-D:

three-dimensional

CASA:

Civil Aviation Safety Authority

CMU:

Carnegie Mellon University

DARPA:

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

FIRA:

Federation of International Robot-soccer Association

FIRST:

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

IARC:

International Aerial Robotics Competition

IMAV:

International Micro Air Vehicles

MSL:

middle-size league

NPO:

nonprofit organization

NQE:

national qualifying event

QID:

qualifier, inspection and demonstration

RNDF:

route network definition file

SAFMC:

Singapore Amazing Flying Machine Competition

SPL:

standard platform

SSL:

small-size league

STEM:

science, technology, engineering and mathematics

UBM:

Universität der Bundeswehr Munich

xUCE:

urban challenge event

References

  1. D.D. Stine: U.S. innovation programs. In: Federally Funded Innovation Inducement Prizes, ed. by D.D. Stine (Nova Press, Hauppauge 2011) pp. 1–38

    Google Scholar 

  2. R. Allan: The amazing Micromice: See how they won. Probing the innards of the smartest and fastest entries in the Amazing Micro-Mouse Contest, IEEE Spectrum 16(9), 62–65 (1979)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. E. Ackerman: Meet the new world's fastest micromouse robot (IEEE Spectrum Magazine, November 2011)

    Google Scholar 

  4. FIRST Organization, available from http://www.usfirst.org/

  5. A.K. Mackworth: On seeing robots. In: Computer Vision: Systems, Theory and Applications, ed. by A. Basu, X. Li (World Scientific, Singapore 1993) pp. 1–13

    Google Scholar 

  6. M.K. Sahota: Reactive deliberation: An architecture for real-time dynamic control in dynamic environments, Proc. 12th Natl. Conf. Artif. Intell. (AAAI) (1994) pp. 1304–1308

    Google Scholar 

  7. H. Kitano (Ed.): Proc. IROS-96 Workshop on RoboCup (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Ansari X Prize foundation, available from http://space.xprize.org/ansari-x-prize

  9. World Robot Olympiads, available from http://www.wroboto.org/

  10. Robogames (formerly ROBOlympics), available from http://robogames.net/

  11. Federation of International Robot Soccer Federation, available from http://www.fira.net/

  12. RoboCup, available from http://www.robocup.org/

  13. World Robotic Sailing Championship, available from http://www.roboticsailing.org/

  14. International Autonomous Robot Racing Competitions, available from http://robotracing2012.com/

  15. J.-H. Kim (Ed.): A Booklet on MIROSOT'96 (Micro Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament), (MIROSOT Organizing Committee, 1996)

    Google Scholar 

  16. H. Kitano (Ed.): Robot Soccer World Cup I (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 1998)

    Google Scholar 

  17. M. Asada, H. Kitano (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup II (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 1999)

    Google Scholar 

  18. M. Veloso, E. Pagello, H. Kitano (Eds.): RoboCup 1999: Robot Soccer World Cup III (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2000)

    Google Scholar 

  19. P. Stone, T. Balch, G. Kraetzschmar (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup IV (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2001)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  20. A. Birk, S. Coradeschi, S. Tadokoro (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup V (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2002)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. G. Kaminka, P. Lima, R. Rojas (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup VI (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2003)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  22. D. Polani, B. Browning, A. Bonarini, K. Yoshida (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup VII (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2004)

    Google Scholar 

  23. D. Nardi, M. Riedmiller, C. Sammut, J. Santos-Victor (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup VIII (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2005)

    Google Scholar 

  24. A. Bredenfeld, A. Jacoff, I. Noda, Y. Takahashi (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup IX (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  25. G. Lakemeyer, E. Sklar, D.G. Sorrenti, T. Takahashi (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup X (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2007)

    Google Scholar 

  26. U. Visser, F. Ribeiro, T. Ohashi, F. Dellaert (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup XI (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  27. L. Iocchi, H. Matsubara, A. Weitzenfeld, C. Zhou (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup XII (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  28. J. Baltes, M. Lagoudakis, T. Naruse, S. Shiry Ghidary (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup XIII (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2010)

    Google Scholar 

  29. J. Ruiz del Solar, E. Chown, P.-G. Ploeger (Eds.): RoboCup 2010: Robot Soccer World Cup XIV (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2011)

    Google Scholar 

  30. T. Roefer, N.M. Mayer, J. Savage, U. Saranli (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup XV (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2012)

    Google Scholar 

  31. X. Chen, P. Stone, L.E. Sucar, T. Van der Zant (Eds.): RoboCup 2012: Robot Soccer World Cup XVI, Mexico City (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2013)

    Google Scholar 

  32. S. Behnke, M. Veloso, A. Visser, R. Xiong (Eds.): Robot Soccer World Cup XVII (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2014)

    Google Scholar 

  33. H. Kitano, M. Tambe, P. Stone, M. Veloso, S. Coradeschi, E. Osawa, H. Matsubara, I. Noda, M. Asada: The RoboCup synthetic agent challenge, Proc. IJCAI-97 (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  34. S. Zickler, T. Laue, O. Birbach, M. Wongphati, M. Veloso: SSLvision: The shared vision system for the RoboCup Small Size League, Lect. Notes Artif. Intell. 5949, 425–436 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  35. E. Olson, J. Strom, R. Morton, A. Richardson, P. Ranganathan, R. Goeddel, M. Bulic, J. Crossman, B. Marinier: Progress toward multirobot reconnaissance and the MAGIC 2010 competition, J. Field Robotics 29(5), 762–792 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. A. Jacoff, R. Sheh, A.-M. Virts, T. Kimura, J. Pellenz, S. Schwertfeger, J. Suthakorn: Using competitions to advance the development of standard test methods for response robots, Proc. 2012 Perform. MetricsIntell. Syst. Workshop (PerMIS'12) (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  37. ELROB competition: http://www.elrob.org/

  38. AUVSI competition: http://www.auvsifoundation.org/Competitions/CompetitionCentral

  39. T. Wisspeintner, T. van der Zant, L. Iocchi, S. Schiffer: RoboCup@Home: Scientific competition and benchmarking for domestic service robots, Interact. Stud. 10(3), 393–428 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. R.C. Michelson: Autonomous Aerial Robots, Unmanned Syst. 29(10), 38–42 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  41. A. Visser: The international micro air vehicle flight competition as autonomy benchmark, Robotics Compet.: Benchmarking, Technol., TransferEduc. Workshop – Eur. Robotics Forum (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  42. DSO National Laboratories, The Science Centre Singapore: Singapore amazing flying machine, Competition Challenge Booklet (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  43. M.J. Er, S. Yuan, N. Wang: Development control and navigation of Octocopter, 10th IEEE Int. Conf. Control Autom. (ICCA) (2013) pp. 1639–1643

    Google Scholar 

  44. R. Roberts, J. Walker: Flying robots to the rescue, IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag. 17(1), 8–10 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. D. Erdos, A. Erdos, S.E. Watkins: An experimental UAV system for search and rescue challenge, Aerosp.Electronic Syst. Mag. IEEE 28(5), 32–37 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. D.C. Macke, S.E. Watkins, T. Rehmeier: Creative Interdisciplinary UAV Design, IEEE Potentials Mag. 33(1), 12–15 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. D. Werner: Making way for unmanned aircraft, Aerospace Am., January, 28–37 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  48. W. Oomkens, M. Mulder, M.M. Van Paassen, M.H.J. Amelink: UAVs as aviators: Environment skills capability for UAVs, IEEE Int. Conf. Syst. Man Cybern. (2008) pp. 2426–2431

    Google Scholar 

  49. AUVSI Seafarer Chapter: 2014 Rules for AUVSI Seafarer Chapter 12th Annual Student UAS (SUAS) Competition (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  50. B. Vidolov, J. De Miras, S. Bonnet: AURYON – A mechatronic UAV project focus on control experimentations, Int. Conf. Comput. Intell.Model., ControlAutom., 2005Int. Conf.Intell. Agents, Web Technol.Internet Commer., Vol. 1 (2005) pp. 1072–1078

    Google Scholar 

  51. Z. Fucen, S. Haiqing, W. Hong: The object recognition and adaptive threshold selection in the vision system for landing an unmanned aerial vehicle, Int. Conf.Inf.Autom. (ICIA) (2009) pp. 117–122

    Google Scholar 

  52. Cyber Alaska: Rules of The First Annual CYBERAlaska CyberPhysical Systems (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  53. O. Lawlor, M. Moss, S. Kibler, C. Carson, S. Bond, S. Bogosyan: Search and rescue robots for integrated research and education in cyber-physical systems, 7th IEEE Int. Conf. e-Learn.Ind. Electron. (ICELIE) (2013) pp. 92–97

    Google Scholar 

  54. R. Schochmann, M. Suchy, J. Pilka, I. Pestun, M. Kusenda: The impact of student's projects: A self reflection, 14th Int. Conf. Interact. Collab. Learn. (ICL) (2011) pp. 553–555

    Google Scholar 

  55. W. Grespin: Drones in our world, Part VI: Barriers to adoption, Diplomatic Courier (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  56. United States Congress: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (United States Congress, Washington 2001), Sect. 217, p. 2549

    Google Scholar 

  57. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): DARPA Grand Challenge Announcement 2004, http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge04/media/announcement_OnlinePDF.pdf (2003)

  58. E.D. Dickmanns, V. Graefe: Applications of dynamic monocular machine vision, Mach. Vis.Appl. 1(4), 241–261 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. D.J.T. Pomerleau: Rapidly adapting machine vision for automated vehicle steering, IEEE Expert Mag. 11(2), 19–27 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. R. Gregor, M. Lutzeler, M. Pellkofer, K.-H. Siedersberger, E.D. Dickmanns: EMS-Vision: A perceptual system for autonomous vehicles, IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst. 3(1), 48–59 (2002)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  61. S. Thrun, M. Beetz, M. Bennewitz, W. Burgard, A.B. Cremers, F. Dellaert, D. Fox, D. Hahnel, C. Rosenberg, N. Roy, J. Schulte, D. Schultz: Probabilistic algorithms and the interactive museum tour-guide robot minerva, Int. J.Robotics Res. 19, 972–999 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. M.W.M.G. Dissanayake, P. Newman, S. Clark, H.F. Durrant-Whyte, M. Csorba: A solution to the simultaneous localization and map building (SLAM) problem, IEEE Trans. RoboticsAutom. 17(3), 229–241 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  63. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): Grand Challenge 2005 Report to Congress, http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/docs/Grand_Challenge_2005_Report_to_Congress_OnlinePDF.pdf (2005)

  64. J.R. McBride, J.C. Ivan, D.S. Rhode, J.D. Rupp, M.Y. Rupp, J.D. Higgins, D.D. Turner, R.M. Eustice: A perspective on emerging automotive safety applications, derived from lessons learned through participation in the DARPA Grand Challenges, J.Field Robotics 25(10), 808–840 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. A. Bacha, C. Bauman, R. Faruque, M. Fleming, C. Terwelp, C. Reinholtz, D. Hong, A. Wicks, T. Alberi, D. Anderson, S. Cacciola, P. Currier, A. Dalton, J. Farmer, J. Hurdus, S. Kimmel, P. King, A. Taylor, D.V. Covern, M. Webster: Odin: Team VictorTango's entry in the DARPA Urban Challenge, J.Field Robotics 25(8), 467–492 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. L. Fletcher, S. Teller, E. Olson, D. Moore, Y. Kuwata, J. How, J. Leonard, I. Miller, M. Campbell, D. Huttenlocher, A. Nathan, F.R. Kline: The MIT–Cornell collision and why it happened, J.Field Robotics 25(10), 775–807 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): DARPA Grand Challenge FAQ 2004, http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge04/faq.asp (2004)

  68. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): DARPA Grand Challenge FAQ 2007, http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge04/media_briefing_OnlinePDF.pdf (2007)

  69. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): DARPA Grand Challenge Final Data 2004, http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge04/media/final_data_OnlinePDF.pdf (2004)

  70. S. Thrun, M. Montemerlo, H. Dahlkamp, D. Stavens, A. Aron, J. Diebel, P. Fong, J. Gale, M. Halpenny, G. Hoffmann, K. Lau, C. Oakley, M. Palatucci, V. Pratt, P. Stang, S. Strohband, C. Dupont, L.-E. Jendrossek, C. Koelen, C. Markey, C. Rummel, J. van Niekerk, E. Jensen, P. Alessandrini, G. Bradski, B. Davies, S. Ettinger, A. Kaehler, A. Nefian, P. Mahoney: Stanley: The robot that won the DARPA Grand Challenge, J. Field Robotics 23(9), 661–692 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): DARPA Grand Challenge FAQ 2007, http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/faq.asp (2007)

  72. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): DARPA Fiscal Year 2007 Annual Report, http://archive.darpa.mil/GRANDCHALLENGE/docs/DDRE_Prize_Report_FY07_OnlinePDF.pdf (2008)

  73. C. Urmson, J. Anhalt, D. Bagnell, C. Baker, R. Bittner, M.N. Clark, J. Dolan, D. Duggins, T. Galatali, C. Geyer, M. Gittleman, S. Harbaugh, M. Hebert, T.M. Howard, S. Kolski, A. Kelly, M. Likhachev, M. McNaughton, N. Miller, K. Peterson, B. Pilnick, R. Rajkumar, P. Rybski, B. Salesky, Y.-W. Seo, S. Singh, J. Snider, A. Stentz, W. Whittaker, Z. Wolkowicki, J. Ziglar, H. Bae, T. Brown, D. Demitrish, B. Litkouhi, J. Nickolaou, V. Sadekar, W. Zhang, J. Struble, M. Taylor, M. Darms, D. Ferguson: Autonomous driving in urban environments: Boss and the urban challenge, J.Field Robotics 25(8), 425–466 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. P. Henderson: SUV with mind of its own wins robot car race, Reuters (Nov. 4 2007)

    Google Scholar 

  75. Velodyne Inc.: Velodyne Lidar Origins, avaliable online at http://velodynelidar.com/lidar/hdlabout/origins.aspx (2005)

  76. J. Markoff: Google cars drive themselves, in traffic, available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/science/10google.html (October 2010)

  77. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): 2012 DARPA Robotics Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=5cf3cc1f46103cc0aba5d0f9412cab25&tab=core&_cview=1 12(39) (2012)

  78. L. Grossman: Building the best driverless robot car, Time (online): http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1684543,00.html, (November 2007)

  79. A.E. Berger, M.C. Koepel (Eds.): U.S. Innovation Programs (Nova Press, Hauppauge 2011)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, Via Ariosto 25, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Daniele Nardi

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, QLD 4001, Brisbane, Australia

    Jonathan Roberts

  3. Computer Science Department, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, PA 15213, Pittsburgh, USA

    Manuela Veloso

  4. Boeing Research & Technology Australia, GPO Box 767, QLD 4001, Brisbane, Australia

    Luke Fletcher

Authors
  1. Daniele Nardi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonathan Roberts
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Manuela Veloso
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Luke Fletcher
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniele Nardi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80125, Naples, Italy

    Bruno Siciliano

  2. Department of Computer Sciences, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, CA 94305, Stanford, USA

    Oussama Khatib

Video-References

Video-References

:

Brief history of RoboCup robot soccer available from http://handbookofrobotics.org/view-chapter/66/videodetails/385

:

Multirobot teamwork in the CMDragons RoboCup SSL team available from http://handbookofrobotics.org/view-chapter/66/videodetails/387

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Nardi, D., Roberts, J., Veloso, M., Fletcher, L. (2016). Robotics Competitions and Challenges. In: Siciliano, B., Khatib, O. (eds) Springer Handbook of Robotics. Springer Handbooks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32552-1_66

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32552-1_66

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32550-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32552-1

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation