News & Events

July 2014

smARTLab@work wins world title at RoboCup 2014 competition

After winning the German Open Robocup@work competition earlier this year (in April) the smARTLab@work team succeeded in its ultimate goal: winning the world title at RoboCup 2014 in Brazil, Joao Pessoa.

smARTLab (swarms, multi-agent and robot technologies, and learning lab) is the robotics lab associated with the Agent ART group of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool (http://robocup2014-results.herokuapp.com/live/#category=atwork.demo&id=53cd20097dce64d4103250b9). The team has now won the world title two times in a row, after winning the @work competition in 2013 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. This is a splendid achievement for smARTLab@work.

The participating team was much reduced compared to previous tournaments in which they participated (down from seven to three members) due to the long journey, hardware arrangements and the associated costs involved. Team members present in Brazil included: Daniel Claes, Joscha Fossel and Bastian Broecker. Special thanks goes to Richard Williams for helping with preparations before the competition, especially with the new gripper.

Despite the success smARTLab@work was a bit unlucky. Immediately after arrival in Brazil: one of the wheels broke, which prevented sideward motion, the robot base crashed in the first phase of the competition (which never happened before), etc. Thanks to the sportsmanship of the runner-up (the b-it-bots team from Bonn, Germany) the team were able continue by using their spare wheel.

Yesterday the competitions were finalised with the awards ceremony and today the scientific symposium is scheduled. More information can be found at: http://www.robocup2014.org and http://robocup2014-results.herokuapp.com/#atwork.demo

A movie of the robot in action: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mgzd69tqcfej0wg/AABabB1DJwNwzj-7kCEQVsOQa#lh:null-GOPR0072.mp4

smARTLab@work members who competed in Brasil: D. Claes (PhD student), J. Fossel (PhD student), B. Broecker (PhD student)

smARTLab@work consists of: D. Claes (PhD student), J. Fossel (PhD student), B. Broecker (PhD student), D. Hennes (postdoc ESA/external affiliate), R. Claessens (PhD student), S. Benmendil (intern), R. Williams (PhD student), Prof. K. Tuyls

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