b-it-bots place 3rd at RoboCup@Home 2011

The b-it-bots team for the RoboCup@Home League, were placed third for their performance with robot Jenny in the finals of the RoboCup Worldcup 2011 in Istanbul that took place till July 10th, 2011.

Three years running, the b-it-bots have competed very successfully with robot Johnny — in six tournaments they always were among the three best teams and in 2009 even became world champions. Nevertheless, this year the b-it-bots have retired their champion Johnny Jackanapes and are now competing with robot Jenny instead. At the first test run, the RoboCup German Open in April, Jenny came already third, a success that now could be repeated under much harder competition.

The much-asked question was, how Jenny and team b-it-bots would acquit themselves at the worldcup? The fans at home could follow the exciting showdown on Jenny’s blog. The testruns of the first round did not go according to the team’s wishes, nevertheless they made it to the next level, together with 11 other teams from the original 25 competing teams. After the initial warm-up Jenny and the whole team were placed third in the final round of five teams and could hold onto this successful result.

During the finals the b-it-bots showed a new scenario: A tenant had ordered the new service robot Jenny that was just delivered in a huge carrier box. Jenny then left the carrier box and was ready for service within a minute. The tenant ordered the robot to drive to the kitchen and get him a bottle of green tea. Jenny tried to get the ordered beverage, however, there was no green tea left. Therefore Jenny returned, asking the tenant, if “she” could bring something else instead. The robot had as only information the map of the appartment beforehand, whereas the position of the objects was unknown.

The platform used for the new b-it-bots’ robot Jenny is a Care-O-Bot III that was developed by the Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart. It has got an omnidirectional actuator and can therefore at once move forward and turn on its own axis. Its strength lies in its improved capacities for grasping objects. While Johnny still used a relatively fragile arm with a two-finger hand, Jenny has got a KUKA LBR and an integrated three-finger hand that allows for more movability and a more robust grasping of objects, while at the time demanding a much more complex programming.

The RoboCup@Home League is a competition for service robots that takes place in a home environment of several furnished rooms. The robots have to autonomously find their way and securely navigate in this home environment that is changed again and again in the course of the competition. They have to recognize objects, learn their names and remember, where these have been placed. The robots of the advanced teams can also grasp and transport the objects, they can learn to identify the faces of the appartment’s tenants and their guests and can recognize them again. The RoboCup@Home League is fast becoming a benchmark for service robotics and finds an increasing number of researchers interested.

Christian Müller, Frederik Hegger, Sven Schneider and Jose Ruiz, all students from the Master of Autonomous Systems Degree Programme, were part of the team in Istanbul as well as the research associates Nico Hochgeschwender, Jan Paulus and
Michael Reckhaus. The b-it-bots are supervised by the professors Gerhard K. Kraetzschmar and Paul G. Plöger and supported by the Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (b-it). Also part of the team were research associates Florian Weißhardt, Alexander Bubeck and Ulrich Reiser from Fraunhofer IPA , who have contributed to this marvelous success.