The promotion of scientific research is one of the RoboCup Federations declared objectives. The annual RoboCup Symposium, the publication of various research papers on diverse RoboCup topics as well as the numerous RoboCup awards are proof to this claim.
In accordance with the RoboCup Federation’s research effort, the Logistics League (RCLL) considers scientific work as a pivotal aspect of its activities. Given the nature of the logistic competition, in which robots autonomously cooperate in retrieving raw materials, transporting materials, intermediate products, and produced goods, as well as handling production in a simulated and dynamic factory environment, the RCLL mainly focuses on in-factory logistics applications. Research fields linked to this application are for instance mobile robot navigation, machine learning, semantic computational intelligence, task scheduling and the like.
The RCLL promotes scientific research in these fields in several ways. Firstly, the RCLL is, as most other RoboCup leagues, organized as a competition. This competitive character requires the participating teams to continuously optimize their solutions in order to succeed in the competition, thereby encouraging scientific progress. Secondly, the RCLL annually holds technical challenges which focus on specific problematic or essential aspects of the overall competition, thus boosting research on individual scientific issues. Thirdly, and maybe most importantly, the RCLL provides participating researchers from various universities with a platform for exchanging ideas. Despite the competitive character, the RCLL strives to create conditions favorable to networking, thus enabling long-term cooperation between researchers and universities in general. Lastly, the RCLL is a most motivating environment for research due to its practice-based nature and the possibility of practical implementation of the research findings. In conclusion, the RCLL quite successfully aspires to enable scientific work aimed at flexible solutions for material and information flow within industrial production settings using coordinated teams of autonomous mobile robots.
RoboCup Logistics League Winter School 2015
December 7-11, 2015, Aachen, Germany
This winter school targets new and existing teams for the RCLL. For new teams it will lower the barrier to enter the competition by learning from an existing open-source software stack and simulation. Theoretical sessions will detail the applied methods in fields like perception, navigation, simulation, or behavior. This was supplemented by practical hands-on sessions based on the full software stack release, see here for further details.
Planning and Execution Competition for Logistics Robots In Simulation
The competition took place at the ICAPS 2018. Robots gain more capabilities every year, yet the use of planning methods to determine the overall behavior is still the exception rather than the norm. The second Planning and Execution Competition for Logistics Robots in Simulation is held in 2018 to foster mutual and closer cooperation between the planning and robotics communities. The domain is based on the RoboCup Logistics League in simulation. We propose this as a challenge to the planning and robotics community, see here for further details.
Publications
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Knowledge-Based Instrumentation and Control for Competitive Industry-Inspired Robotic Domains (Authors: Tim Niemueller, Sebastian Zug, Sven Schneider, Ulrich Karras)
in KI-Künstliche Intelligenz , Volume 30, Issue 3–4, pp 289–299 : link - Fawkes for the RoboCup Logistics League (Authors: Tim Niemueller, Tobias Neumann, Christoph Henke, Sebastian Schoenitz, Sebastian Reuter, Alexander Ferrein, Sabina Jeschke, Gerhard Lakemeyer)
in Proc. RoboCup Symposium 2016 – Harting Open Source Award Paper :
fawkes_rc2016_hartingpaper.pdf - Evaluation of the RoboCup Logistics League and Derived Criteria for Future Competitions (Authors: Tim Niemueller, Sebastian Reuter, Alexander Ferrein, Sabina Jeschke, Gerhard Lakemeyer)
in Proc. RoboCup Symposium 2015 – Best Engineering Paper Award for this publication:
rcll-eval-kpi-rc2015.pdf - Fawkes for the RoboCup Logistics League (Authors: Tim Niemueller, Sebastian Reuter, Alexander Ferrein)
in Proc. Robocup Symposium 2015 :
fawkes-rcll-rc2015.pdf - The RoboCup Logistics League as a Benchmark for Planning in Robotics (Authors: Tim Niemueller, Gerhard Lakemeyer, Alexander Ferrein)
in Proc. ICAPS 2015 – Workshop on Planning and Robotics :
planning-rcll.pdf - Simulation for the RoboCup Logistics League with Real-World Environment Agency and Multi-level Abstraction (Authors: Frederik Zwilling, Tim Niemueller, Gerhard Lakemeyer)
in Proc. Robocup Symposium 2014 :
llsf-sim-rc2014.pdf - Proposal for Advancements to the LLSF in 2014 and beyond (Authors: Tim Niemueller, Gerhard Lakemeyer, Alexander Ferrein, Sebastian Reuter, Daniel Ewert, Sabina Jeschke, Dirk Pensky, Ulrich Karras)
in Proc. ICAR 2013 – 1st Workshop on Developments in RoboCup Leagues:
llsf2014-wdrl2013.pdf