Department of Computer Science

RoboCup World Cup 2024: b-it-bots take third place and receive open source award

Monday 9 September 2024

The H-BRS b-it-bots team from the Department of Computer Science achieved an impressive third place in the RoboCup@Work League at this year's world championship in Eindhoven/Netherlands, despite problems with the hardware, and was also honoured with the Open Source Award.

Scoring @Work League on RoboCup2024 Eindhoven

RoboCup 2024 (17.-21.07.24 Eindhoven/NL) - This year's competition in the RoboCup@Work league, the league of mobile robot manipulators, was particularly exciting. The ranking of the top four teams remained completely open until the final, resulting in an exciting neck-and-neck race. The teams had to prove their skills in robotics, navigation and manipulation and constantly adapt to the changing conditions.

The b-it-bots entered the final round with high hopes. Unfortunately, there was an unexpected setback: one of the robot system's main cameras failed and ultimately stopped communicating with the robot system. Despite this unfortunate incident, last year's world champion team managed to secure third place in the final.

This year, the competition took place under completely different lighting conditions and on a completely different surface than in previous tournaments, presenting the teams with major challenges. Despite these unfamiliar conditions, the b-it-bots team was able to successfully adapt its software and had hardly any problems with the shadows caused by the lighting.

The team received a great deal of support from the Department of Computer Science and the A2S Institute, former team colleagues and other students who were unable to take part in the competition but nevertheless helped to solve the problem and analyse the causes of the technical difficulties.

The start of the tournament was not ideal for the b-it-bots, but the team steadily fought its way forward over the course of the competition. During this process, the team members had to overcome numerous problems, including difficulties in the areas of navigation, perception and manipulation. The entire team worked hard to overcome these challenges and carried out mandatory tests to ensure that all aspects of the robotic system were covered.

Jordan Schneider (staff member), Sai Anudeep Sajja (student member), Chaitanya Gumudala (student member), Gokul Chenchani (student member, team leader), Harley Lara (student member), Akhilan Ashokan (student member), Djordje Vukcevic (staff member)

There was an unexpected setback for our team in the final round: one of the robot system's main cameras failed and eventually stopped communicating with the robot system. Despite this unfortunate incident, the team managed to score some points in the final and ultimately secured third place at the World Championships.

A great achievement that was only possible thanks to the commitment of the team, their intensive work and strong teamwork.

The team was also honoured with the Open Source Award. This is awarded to teams that make their developments and contributions available to the community in the form of open source software and hardware. This award recognises teams that contribute to the further development of the RoboCup community through their openness and collaboration.

We congratulate them on their great performance and look forward to RoboCup 2025 in Brazil!

Go b-it-bots go!