RoboCup@Work
The RoboCup has been an internationally renowned competition for robotics and artificial intelligence for the last 20 years. The aim of the @Work League is to solve robotics problems concerning Industry 4.0 and Smart Factories and to demonstrate the solutions in a lab environment. This is particularly relevant for regional and national industries and is therefore an important component of the THWS research focus “Digital Production”.
Project Goals
Robotics plays an essential and very diverse role in intelligent manufacturing. In addition to undertaking tasks in production, handling, and assembly, robots are expanding their scope of duties into the area of intralogistics. Components and tools need to be transported between different workstations in a timely manner. To achieve this, so-called driver-less transport systems need to be able to navigate safely in highly dynamic environments; they need to identify objects in their vicinity and pick them up accordingly. In addition, the logistics workflow must be planned efficiently as well as optimized to work hand-in-hand with the manufacturing workflow in order to guarantee a productive manufacturing chain.
The RoboCup@Work League was founded in 2013 to address these diverse research questions through scientific studies. The aim of this international competition is to develop robots that can autonomously perform transportation and handling tasks in an abstract industry setting. The popular RoboCup competition, expanding to five main leagues since starting in 1997, provides an excellent platform for advancing cutting-edge technology in robotics and artificial intelligence in tertiary and secondary education as well as introducing it to the wider public.