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 state-of-the-art 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 economic state of affairs 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 ready 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 crew will likely be awarded factors. The setup is that we have now six machines per crew, and three robots working within the good manufacturing unit.

There are two groups competing on the identical time on totally different sides of the sector. Many of the machines are on the house aspect of the sector, however some machines are additionally on the opponent’s aspect of the sector. The groups want to indicate primary robotics expertise like navigation expertise and collision avoidance. For the manufacturing of merchandise we have now little discs which have totally different colors and will be stacked on high of one another, they usually have totally different caps. We’ve got round 550 totally different objects 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 primary focus is on the manufacturing logistics and the planning section. The advanced merchandise should be produced or machined by a crew of robots – with out this planning and crew 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 provided the machines. Nevertheless, they pulled out in February and instructed us that they received’t assist us in bringing the machines to Brazil. Our crew in Aachen has a whole subject arrange, so we’re within the (not really easy) strategy of packing the machines up in pallets and delivery them to Brazil.

Until Hofmann: One necessary element is that each one the merchandise that should be manufactured, the orders for these come on-line, and the variety of doable merchandise may be very excessive. Subsequently, you’ll be able to’t do any planning prematurely – you’ll be able to’t simply create an enormous database that incorporates one sequence that you simply execute for each doable product, that doesn’t actually work. So the robots have to do on-line planning. As a consequence of the truth that we have now a number of robots within the crew after which additionally the opponents groups’ robots on the sector, many issues go otherwise than deliberate, so a really large facet of the competitors is execution monitoring and on-line replanning. Principally you create an preliminary plan, however it’s essential always adapt that plan to what really occurs throughout execution. I simply need to stress that in distinction to different RoboCup competitions, it’s actually a long-horizon planning activity within the sense that we normally have to do actions on a time horizon of 5 to 10 minutes to really get to an intermediate purpose of manufacturing a kind of merchandise.

Wataru Uemura: The main focus of our league is on the right way to deal with the manufacturing line. The three cell robots are an important half. At first these have been autonomous guided robots, however now they’re fully autonomous cell robots. The robots have to determine on their path to make the product.

Might you speak about among the challenges the groups face within the league, and is there a problem or facet 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 can be beginning new, they must take care of all the robotic points, so cell robots, autonomous intelligence methods, 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 have to construct their very own manipulating units. After which there may be this large planning facet of the league, which can be not really easy. After we began this in 2011, 2012, we have been pondering that this should be a solved drawback, that one might use scheduling methods, that manufacturing is digital, and that every part could be simple. Nevertheless, we came upon it’s not really simple, and there aren’t any off-the-shelf options for a fleet of robots doing planning and manufacturing.

our crew (which has turn out to be significantly profitable over time) and from observing the opposite groups as a trustee, I feel that the combination facet of all of the totally different duties can be a laborious 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. At the moment, navigation of a robotic just isn’t the large difficulty, principally, however getting it built-in into your software program system and constructing all the remaining across the planning elements and so forth, that is, from my standpoint, the main problem.

Until: As I discussed, I feel the mixture of long-horizon planning and execution monitoring is especially tough. We do have quite a lot of failures throughout one manufacturing run, due to {hardware} limitations and issues with the robots. Generally the machines themselves fail and they should take care of this, with out with the ability to resolve the issue itself, as a result of it’s not of their management. So they should do quite a lot of reasoning that considers all of the totally different instances which will occur. For instance, immediately you have got a product showing in a machine and also you not know the configuration as a result of this data was misplaced on the best way. How do you take care of 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 stories a failure and the crew must maintain its world mannequin up-to-date to know that this product is not the place they thought it was. How can we take care of this?

Will there be any new challenges launched for RoboCup 2025?

Alexander: As a result of the issue we try to resolve is so laborious, we don’t have many groups within the league. We had a brand new crew at RoboCup2023, in Bordeaux, and they’re now persistently coming to the RoboCups, which is good. Other than this, we have now 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 aren’t actually launched. There are slight modifications right here and there. One of many main modifications lately 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 identical time. We launched points of the sport as challenges. Now we have now a problem monitor as effectively, the place groups can simply concentrate on sure points of the league and don’t have to play the complete sport.

The talents of the groups aren’t creating in such a method that we actually want so as to add new challenges as a result of it’s nonetheless unsolved and laborious for all of the groups to get the robots operating, as a result of we have now so many alternative points.

I perceive that you’re enthusiastic about some modifications 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 stick to this explicit 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 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 are going to begin converging by doing a little type 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 will likely be one large league somewhat than separate industrial competitions. And the thought of the league that we’re at present planning emigrate to can be a broader good manufacturing state of affairs the place we have now totally different points of good manufacturing. So at present it’s actually solely the manufacturing logistics half. However sooner or later, we additionally need to embrace the meeting itself as a part of the competitors and in addition lengthen this to humanoid robots and in addition concentrate on human-robot collaboration on this manufacturing setting.

So this will likely be very totally different to the Logistics League as it’s proper now. How we are going to 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 limit 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 @Residence League there are concepts to introduce the staircases the place you want extra agility in these settings. So for me, I wouldn’t limit the kind of robots that we’re utilizing. We’re simply enthusiastic about proposing challenges which can be wanting in the direction of the longer term. Up to now we have now been doing issues that we thought is perhaps related to trade, however trade just isn’t very desirous about what we’re doing right here. At the very least, they aren’t 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 might 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 trade will likely be extra ?

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

Concerning the interviewees

	Alexander Ferrein obtained 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 Data-Based mostly Programs Group at Aachen College earlier than he turned a professor for Robotics and Laptop 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. Particularly, he’s desirous about high-level management and determination making of robots and brokers appearing below 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 concentrate on 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 obtained B.E, M.E. and D.E. levels from Osaka Metropolis College, in 2000, 2002, and 2005. He’s an affiliate professor in Electronics, Info 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 (International Convention on Client Electronics). He’s a member of the World Abilities in Japan organizing committee of Autonomous Cellular Robots.

---

---