RoboCup Logistics League: an interview with Alexander Ferrein, Until Hofmann and Wataru Uemura

The Industrial League enviornment at RoboCup2025.

RoboCup is a global scientific initiative with the objective of advancing the state-of-the-art of clever robots, AI and automation. The annual RoboCup occasion passed off from 15-21 July in Salvador, Brazil. The Logistics League kinds a part of the Industrial League and is an application-driven league impressed by the commercial situation of a wise manufacturing unit. Forward of the Brazil assembly, we spoke with three key members of the league to search out out extra. Alexander Ferrein is a RoboCup Trustee overseeing the Industrial League, and Until Hofmann and Wataru Uemura are Logistics League Govt Committee members.

Might you begin by giving us an introduction to the Logistics League?

Alexander Ferrein: The concept of the Logistics League is to have robots serving to in intra-production logistics. The taking part in subject is about up with totally different machines and the robots have to convey uncooked supplies and merchandise to the machines and choose merchandise up from them. There are orders coming in for various merchandise of various complexities. The concept is that the robots ship these merchandise after they’ve been machined, at a sure handover level, after which the group can be awarded factors. The setup is that we have now six machines per group, and three robots working within the sensible manufacturing unit.

There are two groups competing on the similar time on totally different sides of the sector. A lot of the machines are on the house facet of the sector, however some machines are additionally on the opponent’s facet of the sector. The groups want to point out fundamental robotics expertise like navigation expertise and collision avoidance. For the manufacturing of merchandise we have now little discs which have totally different colors and may be stacked on high of one another, and so they have totally different caps. We now have round 550 totally different gadgets that may be produced. We don’t focus a lot on the dealing with of the elements, due to this fact the manipulating mechanisms are fairly easy and are normally customized constructed by the groups. They simply have to seize these discs and drive them round and put them on conveyor belts on the machines.

The principle focus is on the manufacturing logistics and the planning section. The complicated merchandise should be produced or machined by a group of robots – with out this planning and group work it wouldn’t be doable to ship the merchandise throughout the allotted time within the competitors.

Till now, we had been supported by Festo didactics, who equipped the machines. Nevertheless, they pulled out in February and instructed us that they received’t assist us in bringing the machines to Brazil. Our group in Aachen has a whole subject arrange, so we’re within the (not really easy) means of packing the machines up in pallets and transport them to Brazil.

Until Hofmann: One necessary element is that every one the merchandise that should be manufactured, the orders for these come on-line, and the variety of doable merchandise may be very excessive. Due to this fact, you possibly can’t do any planning upfront – you possibly can’t simply create an enormous database that comprises one sequence that you just execute for each doable product, that doesn’t actually work. So the robots have to do on-line planning. Attributable to the truth that we have now a number of robots within the group after which additionally the opponents groups’ robots on the sector, many issues go in another way than deliberate, so a really huge facet of the competitors is execution monitoring and on-line replanning. Principally you create an preliminary plan, however you must consistently adapt that plan to what truly occurs throughout execution. I simply wish to stress that in distinction to different RoboCup competitions, it’s actually a long-horizon planning process within the sense that we normally have to do actions on a time horizon of 5 to 10 minutes to truly get to an intermediate objective of manufacturing a kind of merchandise.

Wataru Uemura: The main focus of our league is on how one can deal with the manufacturing line. The three cell robots are a vital half. At first these have been autonomous guided robots, however now they’re fully autonomous cell robots. The robots have to resolve on their path to make the product.

Might you discuss a number of the challenges the groups face within the league, and is there a problem or facet of the competitors that the groups have discovered notably troublesome?

Alexander: To start with, one must say that it’s a actually powerful drawback that we face right here. So the groups which are beginning new, they need to cope with the entire robotic points, so cell robots, autonomous intelligence programs, they should drive round, map, work together with the machines. As these things that we’re pushing round are non-standard issues, additionally they have to construct their very own manipulating units. After which there may be this huge planning facet of the league, which can be not really easy. Once we began this in 2011, 2012, we have been pondering that this have to be a solved drawback, that one may use scheduling programs, that manufacturing is digital, and that every little thing can be straightforward. Nevertheless, we discovered it’s not truly straightforward, and there aren’t any off-the-shelf options for a fleet of robots doing planning and manufacturing.

our group (which has change into notably profitable over time) and from observing the opposite groups as a trustee, I believe that the mixing facet of all of the totally different duties is mostly a exhausting factor. Having a software program system that’s able to so many issues, speaking with the centralized referee field, and making it run throughout the time restrict of a match, is the key problem. Right now, navigation of a robotic is just not the large challenge, mainly, however getting it built-in into your software program system and constructing all the remainder across the planning parts and so forth, that is, from my perspective, the key problem.

Until: As I discussed, I believe the mix of long-horizon planning and execution monitoring is especially troublesome. We do have loads of failures throughout one manufacturing run, due to {hardware} limitations and issues with the robots. Generally the machines themselves fail and they should cope with this, with out having the ability to resolve the issue itself, as a result of it’s not of their management. So they should do loads of reasoning that considers all of the totally different circumstances which will occur. For instance, abruptly you’ve gotten a product showing in a machine and also you not know the configuration as a result of this info was misplaced on the best way. How do you cope with this? One other instance is that the robotic drops a chunk whereas it’s driving round after which tries to feed it into the machine. Then the machine experiences a failure and the group must preserve its world mannequin up-to-date to know that this product is not the place they thought it was. How can we cope with this?

Will there be any new challenges launched for RoboCup 2025?

Alexander: As a result of the issue we try to unravel is so exhausting, we don’t have many groups within the league. We had a brand new group at RoboCup2023, in Bordeaux, and they’re now constantly coming to the RoboCups, which is sweet. Other than this, we have now a core of three to 5 groups that take part within the league. Because the problem itself is difficult to get into, the talents solely develop slowly, so new challenges are usually not actually launched. There are slight adjustments right here and there. One of many main adjustments in recent times was throughout Coronavirus instances the place we needed to abandon the entire match facet as a result of we couldn’t play with two groups on the similar time. We launched points of the sport as challenges. Now we have now a problem monitor as nicely, the place groups can simply deal with sure points of the league and don’t have to play the total recreation.

The abilities of the groups are usually not creating in such a method that we actually want so as to add new challenges as a result of it’s nonetheless unsolved and exhausting for all of the groups to get the robots working, as a result of we have now so many alternative points.

I perceive that you’re fascinated about some adjustments to the league. Might you say extra about this?

Alexander: Sure, we have now some concepts for a brand new Industrial League. As Festo are pulling out we don’t see the necessity to follow this specific machine kind. We had a workshop earlier this yr with all of the groups and organising committees and we’re proposing a future problem, or league. We’ll talk about this at RoboCup2025.

Until: We truly already had discussions with @work, and agreed that the long-term objective is to merge the 2 competitions into one huge Industrial League. Subsequent yr, we’ll begin converging by doing a little sort of collaboration problem or crossover problem the place groups from @work will collaborate with what’s now the Logistics League, however would be the Good Manufacturing League by that point. Then hopefully, in two or three years, this can be one huge league reasonably than separate industrial competitions. And the concept of the league that we’re at present planning emigrate to is mostly a broader sensible manufacturing situation the place we have now totally different points of sensible manufacturing. So at present it’s actually solely the manufacturing logistics half. However sooner or later, we additionally wish to embody the meeting itself as a part of the competitors and likewise lengthen this to humanoid robots and likewise deal with human-robot collaboration on this manufacturing setting.

So this can be very totally different to the Logistics League as it’s proper now. How we’ll do the migration from what we have now to that new league with out dropping all of the groups is one thing that’s nonetheless within the making.

Alexander: I additionally don’t suppose we shouldn’t prohibit ourselves to only one kind of robotic. As we see, there’s something occurring with respect to humanoid robots, and the Rescue League is proposing a quadruped robotic. Within the @Dwelling League there are concepts to introduce the staircases the place you want extra agility in these settings. So for me, I wouldn’t prohibit the kind of robots that we’re utilizing. We’re simply fascinated about proposing challenges which are wanting in the direction of the long run. To date we have now been doing issues that we thought may be related to business, however business is just not very all in favour of what we’re doing right here. Not less than, they don’t seem to be knocking at our doorways and asking what our options are. That’s additionally one other facet that we’ll probably talk about at Robocup 2025 – how we may improve our affect as a league for the surface world.

In order that’s one of many goals, I assume, to evolve in a method such that business can be extra ?

Alexander: Sure, be related, proper? I imply, you see a lot occurring, particularly in China with the robotic manufacturing OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] that construct these robots in a couple of years which have fairly spectacular capabilities. And nicely, we stand apart and simply watch. So possibly we must always use these robots, and combine them into our course of. It’s essential that we’re opening our minds to ascertain a future that’s totally different from at the moment.

Concerning the interviewees

	Alexander Ferrein acquired his MSc in Pc Science (Dipl.-Inform.) and his PhD (Dr. rer. nat) from Aachen College in 2001 and 2007, respectively. Between 2009-2011 he joined the Robotics and Brokers Analysis Lab, College of Cape City, as a postdoctoral analysis fellow with Feodor-Lynen scholarship granted by the Alexander-von-Humboldt Basis. He then re-joined the Data-Primarily based Programs Group at Aachen College earlier than he grew to become a professor for Robotics and Pc Science at FH Aachen College of Utilized Sciences. He’s a heading the Cellular Autonomous Programs & Cognitive Robotics Institute at Aachen Utilized Science College. His analysis focusses on the sector of Synthetic Intelligence and Cognitive Robotics. Since 2015 he’s member of the Advisory Committee of the African-German Community of Excellence in Science whose Vice-president he was between 2019-2023. His analysis concentrates on the sector of cognitive robotics. Specifically, he’s all in favour of high-level management and choice making of robots and brokers performing beneath real-time constraints.
	Until Hofmann is a Postdoc at RWTH Aachen College. His analysis focuses on planning, plan execution, generalized planning in addition to reactive synthesis, with a specific deal with planning for robotics. He was a participant within the RoboCup Logistics League from 2016 till 2019 and member of the technical committee from 2017 till 2020. Since 2024, he’s on the manager committee of the RCLL.
	Wataru Uemura was born in 1977, and acquired B.E, M.E. and D.E. levels from Osaka Metropolis College, in 2000, 2002, and 2005. He’s an affiliate professor in Electronics, Data and Communication Engineering Course, College of Superior Science and Expertise, Ryukoku College in Shiga, Japan. He’s a member of IEEE, RoboCup and others. He’s a chairperson of the RoboCup Japanese Nationwide Committee. He’s an government committee member of RoboCup Logistics League. He was a member of the Industrial Robotics Competitors Committee, the World Robotic Summit. He was TPC Vice Chairs of GCCE 2012, Convention Chair of GCCE 2016, and Publication Chairs of GCCE (International Convention on Client Electronics). He’s a member of the World Expertise in Japan organizing committee of Autonomous Cellular Robots.