Alexander Ferrein:<\/strong> The thought of the Logistics League is to have robots serving to in intra-production logistics. The enjoying subject is about up with completely different machines and the robots have to carry 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 staff shall be awarded factors. The setup is that we now have six machines per staff, and three robots working within the good manufacturing facility. <\/p>\nThere are two groups competing on the similar time on completely different sides of the sphere. A lot of the machines are on the house aspect of the sphere, however some machines are additionally on the opponent\u2019s aspect of the sphere. The groups want to indicate primary robotics expertise like navigation expertise and collision avoidance. For the manufacturing of merchandise we now have little discs which have completely different colors and might be stacked on prime of one another, they usually have completely different caps. We’ve round 550 completely different objects that may be produced. We don\u2019t focus a lot on the dealing with of the components, 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. <\/p>\n
The principle focus is on the manufacturing logistics and the planning section. The complicated merchandise must be produced or machined by a staff of robots \u2013 with out this planning and staff work it wouldn\u2019t be attainable to ship the merchandise inside the allotted time within the competitors. <\/p>\n
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\u2019t help us in bringing the machines to Brazil. Our staff 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. <\/p>\n
Until Hofmann:<\/strong> One vital element is that each one the merchandise that must be manufactured, the orders for these come on-line, and the variety of attainable merchandise may be very excessive. Due to this fact, you’ll be able to\u2019t do any planning prematurely \u2013 you’ll be able to\u2019t simply create an enormous database that accommodates one sequence that you simply execute for each attainable product, that doesn\u2019t actually work. So the robots have to do on-line planning. Because of the truth that we now have a number of robots within the staff after which additionally the opponents groups\u2019 robots on the sphere, many issues go otherwise than deliberate, so a really massive side of the competitors is execution monitoring and on-line replanning. Principally you create an preliminary plan, however you have to continuously adapt that plan to what really occurs throughout execution. I simply wish to stress that in distinction to different RoboCup competitions, it\u2019s 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 purpose of manufacturing a kind of merchandise.<\/p>\nWataru Uemura:<\/strong> The main target of our league is on find out how to deal with the manufacturing line. The three cellular robots are a vital half. At first these had been autonomous guided robots, however now they’re fully autonomous cellular robots. The robots have to resolve on their path to make the product. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/aihub.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/PXL_20250719_163447303-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/span>Might you speak about among 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? <\/span><\/h4>\nAlexander:<\/strong> To begin with, one must say that it’s a actually robust downside that we face right here. So the groups which are beginning new, they should cope with all the robotic features, so cellular robots, autonomous intelligence programs, they should drive round, map, work together with the machines. As this stuff that we’re pushing round are non-standard issues, in addition they have to construct their very own manipulating gadgets. After which there may be this huge planning side of the league, which can also be not really easy. After we began this in 2011, 2012, we had been pondering that this have to be a solved downside, that one may use scheduling programs, that manufacturing is digital, and that every little thing could be simple. Nonetheless, we came upon it\u2019s not really simple, and there are not any off-the-shelf options for a fleet of robots doing planning and manufacturing.<\/p>\n our staff (which has grow to be 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 can be 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 inside the time restrict of a match, is the foremost problem. At the moment, navigation of a robotic isn’t the large challenge, principally, however getting it built-in into your software program system and constructing all the remaining across the planning parts and so forth, that is, from my standpoint, the foremost problem.<\/p>\n
Until:<\/strong> 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 remedy the issue itself, as a result of it\u2019s not of their management. So they should do lots of reasoning that considers all of the completely different instances that will occur. For instance, out of the blue you could have a product showing in a machine and also you not know the configuration as a result of this info was misplaced on the way in which. 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 staff must preserve its world mannequin up-to-date to know that this product is not the place they thought it was. How will we cope with this?<\/p>\n<\/span>Will there be any new challenges launched for RoboCup 2025?<\/span><\/h4>\nAlexander:<\/strong> As a result of the issue we are attempting to unravel is so exhausting, we don\u2019t have many groups within the league. We had a brand new staff at RoboCup2023, in Bordeaux, and they’re now persistently coming to the RoboCups, which is sweet. Other than this, we now have 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 usually are not actually launched. There are slight modifications right here and there. One of many main modifications in recent times was throughout Coronavirus instances the place we needed to abandon the entire match side as a result of we couldn\u2019t play with two groups on the similar time. We launched features of the sport as challenges. Now we now have a problem monitor as nicely, the place groups can simply give attention to sure features of the league and don’t have to play the total recreation. <\/p>\nThe talents of the groups usually are not creating in such a means 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 operating, as a result of we now have so many various features.\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/aihub.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/PXL_20250719_194216931-scaled.jpg\")
The Industrial League area at RoboCup2025.<\/em><\/p>\n