RoboCup Logistics League: an interview with Alexander Ferrein, Until Hofmann and Wataru Uemura

The Industrial League enviornment at RoboCup2025.

RoboCup is a world scientific initiative with the objective of advancing the state-of-the-art of clever robots, AI and automation. The annual RoboCup occasion happened from 15-21 July in Salvador, Brazil. The Logistics League varieties a part of the Industrial League and is an application-driven league impressed by the commercial state of affairs of a sensible manufacturing unit. Forward of the Brazil assembly, we spoke with three key members of the league to seek out out extra. Alexander Ferrein is a RoboCup Trustee overseeing the Industrial League, and Until Hofmann and Wataru Uemura are Logistics League Govt Committee members.

Might you begin by giving us an introduction to the Logistics League?

Alexander Ferrein: The thought of the Logistics League is to have robots serving to in intra-production logistics. The taking part in subject is about up with completely different machines and the robots have to convey 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 crew can be awarded factors. The setup is that we’ve six machines per crew, and three robots working within the sensible manufacturing unit.

There are two groups competing on the identical time on completely different sides of the sector. A lot of the machines are on the house facet of the sector, however some machines are additionally on the opponent’s facet of the sector. The groups want to point out fundamental robotics expertise like navigation expertise and collision avoidance. For the manufacturing of merchandise we’ve little discs which have completely different colors and may be stacked on prime of one another, and so they have completely different caps. We now have round 550 completely different objects that may be produced. We don’t focus a lot on the dealing with of the elements, subsequently the manipulating mechanisms are fairly easy and are often customized constructed by the groups. They only have to seize these discs and drive them round and put them on conveyor belts on the machines.

The primary focus is on the manufacturing logistics and the planning part. The complicated merchandise must be produced or machined by a crew of robots – with out this planning and crew work it wouldn’t be attainable to ship the merchandise throughout the allotted time within the competitors.

Till now, we had been supported by Festo didactics, who provided the machines. Nonetheless, they pulled out in February and informed us that they gained’t assist us in bringing the machines to Brazil. Our crew in Aachen has an entire subject arrange, so we’re within the (not really easy) strategy of packing the machines up in pallets and transport them to Brazil.

Until Hofmann: One essential element is that every one the merchandise that must be manufactured, the orders for these come on-line, and the variety of attainable merchandise could be very excessive. Due to this fact, you may’t do any planning prematurely – you may’t simply create a giant database that comprises one sequence that you just execute for each attainable product, that doesn’t actually work. So the robots have to do on-line planning. Resulting from the truth that we’ve a number of robots within the crew after which additionally the opponents groups’ robots on the sector, many issues go in another way than deliberate, so a really large side of the competitors is execution monitoring and on-line replanning. Mainly you create an preliminary plan, however it’s essential to consistently adapt that plan to what truly occurs throughout execution. I simply need to stress that in distinction to different RoboCup competitions, it’s actually a long-horizon planning activity within the sense that we often have to do actions on a time horizon of 5 to 10 minutes to really get to an intermediate objective of manufacturing a kind of merchandise.

Wataru Uemura: The main focus of our league is on find out how to deal with the manufacturing line. The three cellular robots are an important half. At first these had been autonomous guided robots, however now they’re fully autonomous cellular robots. The robots have to determine on their path to make the product.

Might you discuss among the challenges the groups face within the league, and is there a problem or side of the competitors that the groups have discovered notably tough?

Alexander: To start with, one must say that it’s a actually powerful downside that we face right here. So the groups which might be beginning new, they must cope with the entire robotic elements, so cellular robots, autonomous intelligence techniques, they should drive round, map, work together with the machines. As this stuff that we’re pushing round are non-standard issues, additionally they have to construct their very own manipulating gadgets. After which there’s this huge planning side of the league, which can also be not really easy. Once we began this in 2011, 2012, we had been considering that this have to be a solved downside, that one might use scheduling techniques, that manufacturing is digital, and that every thing can be straightforward. Nonetheless, we discovered it’s not truly straightforward, and there aren’t any off-the-shelf options for a fleet of robots doing planning and manufacturing.

our crew (which has turn into notably profitable through the years) and from observing the opposite groups as a trustee, I believe that the mixing side of all of the completely different duties is known as a laborious factor. Having a software program system that’s able to so many issues, speaking with the centralized referee field, and making it run throughout the time restrict of a match, is the most important problem. At the moment, navigation of a robotic isn’t the massive problem, mainly, however getting it built-in into your software program system and constructing all the remainder across the planning elements and so forth, that is, from my standpoint, the most important problem.

Until: As I discussed, I believe the mix of long-horizon planning and execution monitoring is especially tough. We do have a number 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 resolve the issue itself, as a result of it’s not of their management. So they should do a number of reasoning that considers all of the completely different instances which will occur. For instance, all of the sudden you have got a product showing in a machine and also you now not know the configuration as a result of this data 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 crew must hold its world mannequin up-to-date to know that this product is now not the place they thought it was. How can we cope with this?

Will there be any new challenges launched for RoboCup 2025?

Alexander: As a result of the issue we try to resolve is so laborious, we don’t have many groups within the league. We had a brand new crew at RoboCup2023, in Bordeaux, and they’re now constantly coming to the RoboCups, which is sweet. Aside from this, we’ve 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 lately was throughout Coronavirus occasions the place we needed to abandon the entire match side as a result of we couldn’t play with two groups on the identical time. We launched elements of the sport as challenges. Now we’ve a problem observe as effectively, the place groups can simply deal with sure elements of the league and don’t have to play the total sport.

The talents of the groups usually are not growing in such a manner that we actually want so as to add new challenges as a result of it’s nonetheless unsolved and laborious for all of the groups to get the robots operating, as a result of we’ve so many alternative elements.

I perceive that you’re fascinated with some modifications to the league. Might you say extra about this?

Alexander: Sure, we’ve some concepts for a brand new Industrial League. As Festo are pulling out we don’t see the necessity to persist with this specific machine kind. We had a workshop earlier this 12 months with all of the groups and organising committees and we’re proposing a future problem, or league. We are going to talk about this at RoboCup2025.

Until: We truly already had discussions with @work, and agreed that the long-term objective is to merge the 2 competitions into one large Industrial League. Subsequent 12 months, we are going to begin converging by performing some sort of collaboration problem or crossover problem the place groups from @work will collaborate with what’s now the Logistics League, however would be the Sensible Manufacturing League by that point. Then hopefully, in two or three years, this can be one large league quite than separate industrial competitions. And the thought of the league that we’re presently planning emigrate to is known as a broader sensible manufacturing state of affairs the place we’ve completely different elements of sensible manufacturing. So presently it’s actually solely the manufacturing logistics half. However sooner or later, we additionally need to embrace the meeting itself as a part of the competitors and in addition lengthen this to humanoid robots and in addition deal with human-robot collaboration on this manufacturing setting.

So this can be very completely different to the Logistics League as it’s proper now. How we are going to do the migration from what we’ve to that new league with out shedding all of the groups is one thing that’s nonetheless within the making.

Alexander: I additionally don’t suppose we shouldn’t prohibit ourselves to only one kind of robotic. As we see, there’s something occurring with respect to humanoid robots, and the Rescue League is proposing a quadruped robotic. Within the @Dwelling League there are concepts to introduce the staircases the place you want extra agility in these settings. So for me, I wouldn’t prohibit the kind of robots that we’re utilizing. We’re simply fascinated with proposing challenges which might be wanting in direction of the longer term. Thus far we’ve been doing issues that we thought could be related to trade, however trade isn’t very enthusiastic about what we’re doing right here. At the least, they don’t seem to be knocking at our doorways and asking what our options are. That’s additionally one other side that we are going to presumably talk about at Robocup 2025 – how we might enhance our influence as a league for the skin world.

In order that’s one of many goals, I assume, to evolve in a manner such that trade can be extra ?

Alexander: Sure, be related, proper? I imply, you see a lot occurring, particularly in China with the robotic manufacturing OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] that construct these robots in just a few years which have fairly spectacular capabilities. And effectively, we stand apart and simply watch. So perhaps we should always use these robots, and combine them into our course of. It’s essential that we’re opening our minds to ascertain a future that’s completely different from immediately.

Concerning the interviewees

	Alexander Ferrein obtained his MSc in Laptop Science (Dipl.-Inform.) and his PhD (Dr. rer. nat) from Aachen College in 2001 and 2007, respectively. Between 2009-2011 he joined the Robotics and Brokers Analysis Lab, College of Cape City, as a postdoctoral analysis fellow with Feodor-Lynen scholarship granted by the Alexander-von-Humboldt Basis. He then re-joined the Information-Based mostly Techniques Group at Aachen College earlier than he turned a professor for Robotics and Laptop Science at FH Aachen College of Utilized Sciences. He’s a heading the Cellular Autonomous Techniques & Cognitive Robotics Institute at Aachen Utilized Science College. His analysis focusses on the sector of Synthetic Intelligence and Cognitive Robotics. Since 2015 he’s member of the Advisory Committee of the African-German Community of Excellence in Science whose Vice-president he was between 2019-2023. His analysis concentrates on the sector of cognitive robotics. Particularly, he’s enthusiastic about high-level management and determination making of robots and brokers performing beneath real-time constraints.
	Until Hofmann is a Postdoc at RWTH Aachen College. His analysis focuses on planning, plan execution, generalized planning in addition to reactive synthesis, with a selected deal with planning for robotics. He was a participant within the RoboCup Logistics League from 2016 till 2019 and member of the technical committee from 2017 till 2020. Since 2024, he’s on the manager committee of the RCLL.
	Wataru Uemura was born in 1977, and obtained B.E, M.E. and D.E. levels from Osaka Metropolis College, in 2000, 2002, and 2005. He’s an affiliate professor in Electronics, Data and Communication Engineering Course, School of Superior Science and Expertise, Ryukoku College in Shiga, Japan. He’s a member of IEEE, RoboCup and others. He’s a chairperson of the RoboCup Japanese Nationwide Committee. He’s an govt committee member of RoboCup Logistics League. He was a member of the Industrial Robotics Competitors Committee, the World Robotic Summit. He was TPC Vice Chairs of GCCE 2012, Convention Chair of GCCE 2016, and Publication Chairs of GCCE (International Convention on Shopper Electronics). He’s a member of the World Abilities in Japan organizing committee of Autonomous Cellular Robots.