Robotics team from the university is RoboCup world champion

Bitbots sind Weltmeister beim Robocup 2023

The b-it-bots team from Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences (H-BRS) has won the world championship title at RoboCup 2023 in Bordeaux, France. In the @work league of the robot tournament, the team of students from the Department of Computer Science beat their opponents from the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt and the University of Magdeburg into second and third place. It is the second success for the H-BRS team, which had already crowned itself world champion in 2019.

"Winning the world championship once again underlines the above-average level of the b-it-bots team, which has already existed for many years! My congratulations and also my thanks go to all the participants, their commitment contributed significantly to winning the title," says Professor Sascha Alda, Dean in the Department of Computer Science.

The RoboCup@work competition is about programming industrial robots to solve tasks independently. The competition arena is a room with low side walls and markings on the floor. Here, the robots have to orientate themselves independently and do their work. This includes, for example, correctly grasping different objects, transporting them and putting them back in the right place undamaged.

Ergebnistabelle bitbots robocup Wettbewerb 2023

"The biggest challenge for our robots was recognizing objects that were newly introduced this year. These included drills, screwdrivers and motors. I am happy that our hard work has paid off and we are now going home with the title in our luggage," says Santosh Thoduka, research assistant at the Department of Computer Science, who supervises the team together with Mohammad Wasil and Deebul-Sivarajan Nair.

Artificial intelligence and autonomous systems have been a research focus at the university for more than 20 years. The Autonomous Systems Master's programme, whose students make up the b-it-bots team, was the first of its kind in Germany. In March of this year, the H-BRS also founded the A2S Institute to bring together and expand research in the fields of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.

The b-it-bots in 2023 consist of Kevin Patel (team leader), Gokul Chenchani, Ravisankar Selvaraju, Shubham Shinde, Vamsi Kalagaturu, Vivek Mannava, Santosh Thoduka