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 purpose of advancing the cutting-edge of clever robots, AI and automation. The annual RoboCup occasion befell from 15-21 July in Salvador, Brazil. The Logistics League types a part of the Industrial League and is an application-driven league impressed by the commercial state of affairs of a sensible manufacturing unit. Forward of the Brazil assembly, we spoke with three key members of the league to seek 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.

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

Alexander Ferrein: The thought of the Logistics League is to have robots serving to in intra-production logistics. The taking part in discipline is about up with completely different machines and the robots must deliver 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 thought is that the robots ship these merchandise after they’ve been machined, at a sure handover level, after which the group will probably be awarded factors. The setup is that now we have six machines per group, and three robots working within the good manufacturing unit.

There are two groups competing on the identical time on completely 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 indicate fundamental robotics expertise like navigation expertise and collision avoidance. For the manufacturing of merchandise now we have little discs which have completely different colors and will be stacked on high of one another, they usually have completely different caps. We’ve got round 550 completely different gadgets that may be produced. We don’t focus a lot on the dealing with of the components, subsequently the manipulating mechanisms are fairly easy and are normally customized constructed by the groups. They only must seize these discs and drive them round and put them on conveyor belts on the machines.

The primary focus is on the manufacturing logistics and the planning part. The complicated merchandise must 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. Nonetheless, they pulled out in February and advised us that they gained’t assist us in bringing the machines to Brazil. Our group in Aachen has an entire discipline arrange, so we’re within the (not really easy) strategy of packing the machines up in pallets and transport them to Brazil.

Until Hofmann: One necessary element is that each one the merchandise that must be manufactured, the orders for these come on-line, and the variety of doable merchandise could be very excessive. Subsequently, you possibly can’t do any planning upfront – you possibly can’t simply create an enormous database that comprises one sequence that you simply execute for each doable product, that doesn’t actually work. So the robots must do on-line planning. Resulting from the truth that now we have a number of robots within the group after which additionally the opponents groups’ robots on the sector, many issues go in a different way than deliberate, so a really large side of the competitors is execution monitoring and on-line replanning. Principally you create an preliminary plan, however that you must continually adapt that plan to what really 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 must do actions on a time horizon of 5 to 10 minutes to truly get to an intermediate purpose of manufacturing a type of merchandise.

Wataru Uemura: The main target of our league is on easy methods to deal with the manufacturing line. The three cellular robots are an important half. At first these had been autonomous guided robots, however now they’re utterly autonomous cellular robots. The robots must resolve on their path to make the product.

May you discuss a few of the challenges the groups face within the league, and is there a problem or side of the competitors that the groups have discovered significantly tough?

Alexander: Initially, one must say that it’s a actually robust drawback that we face right here. So the groups which are beginning new, they should cope with the entire robotic facets, so cellular 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, in addition they must construct their very own manipulating gadgets. After which there may be this large planning side of the league, which can be not really easy. Once we began this in 2011, 2012, we had been pondering that this should be a solved drawback, that one might use scheduling programs, that manufacturing is digital, and that every little thing can be straightforward. Nonetheless, we came upon it’s not really straightforward, and there are not any off-the-shelf options for a fleet of robots doing planning and manufacturing.

Taking a look at our group (which has develop into significantly profitable through the years) and from observing the opposite groups as a trustee, I feel that the mixing side of all of the completely different duties is known as a onerous 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 main problem. Right this moment, navigation of a robotic just isn’t the massive challenge, mainly, however getting it built-in into your software program system and constructing all the remainder across the planning elements and so forth, that is, from my perspective, the main problem.

Until: As I discussed, I feel the mixture of long-horizon planning and execution monitoring is especially tough. We do have lots 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 lots of reasoning that considers all of the completely different circumstances that will occur. For instance, out of the blue you’ve gotten a product showing in a machine and also you now not know the configuration as a result of this data was misplaced on the way in which. How do you cope with this? One other instance is that the robotic drops a bit whereas it’s driving round after which tries to feed it into the machine. Then the machine experiences a failure and the group must hold its world mannequin up-to-date to know that this product is now 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 resolve is so onerous, 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, now we have a core of three to 5 groups that take part within the league. Because the problem itself is tough to get into, the abilities solely develop slowly, so new challenges should not actually launched. There are slight modifications right here and there. One of many main modifications in recent times was throughout Coronavirus occasions the place we needed to abandon the entire match side as a result of we couldn’t play with two groups on the identical time. We launched facets of the sport as challenges. Now now we have a problem monitor as nicely, the place groups can simply give attention to sure facets of the league and don’t must play the total recreation.

The talents of the groups should not creating in such a approach that we actually want so as to add new challenges as a result of it’s nonetheless unsolved and onerous for all of the groups to get the robots working, as a result of now we have so many various facets.

I perceive that you’re excited about some modifications to the league. May you say extra about this?

Alexander: Sure, now we have some concepts for a brand new Industrial League. As Festo are pulling out we don’t see the necessity to persist with this explicit machine sort. 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 really already had discussions with @work, and agreed that the long-term purpose is to merge the 2 competitions into one large 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 Sensible Manufacturing League by that point. Then hopefully, in two or three years, this will probably be one large league fairly than separate industrial competitions. And the thought of the league that we’re at present planning emigrate to is known as a broader good manufacturing state of affairs the place now we have completely different facets of good manufacturing. So at present it’s actually solely the manufacturing logistics half. However sooner or later, we additionally wish to embrace the meeting itself as a part of the competitors and likewise prolong this to humanoid robots and likewise give attention to human-robot collaboration on this manufacturing setting.

So this will probably be very completely different to the Logistics League as it’s proper now. How we’ll do the migration from what now we have to that new league with out shedding 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 sort 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 @Residence 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 excited about proposing challenges which are wanting in the direction of the long run. Thus far now we have been doing issues that we thought is perhaps related to business, however business just isn’t very focused on 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 side that we’ll probably talk about at Robocup 2025 – how we might improve our affect as a league for the skin world.

In order that’s one of many goals, I assume, to evolve in a approach such that business will probably 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 just a few years which have fairly spectacular capabilities. And nicely, we stand apart and simply watch. So possibly we should always use these robots, and combine them into our course of. It’s crucial that we’re opening our minds to ascertain a future that’s completely different from at present.

In regards to the interviewees

	Alexander Ferrein acquired his MSc in Laptop 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 Information-Primarily based Programs Group at Aachen College earlier than he grew to become a professor for Robotics and Laptop Science at FH Aachen College of Utilized Sciences. He’s a heading the Cell 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 focused on high-level management and determination 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 give attention to 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 chief 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 Know-how, 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 (World Convention on Shopper Electronics). He’s a member of the World Expertise in Japan organizing committee of Autonomous Cell Robots.