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1998 AAAI Mobile Robot Competition Robotics Competition Corner
Robotics and Autonomous Systems ELSEVIER
Robotics and Autonomous Systems 25 (1998) 129-131
1998 AAAI Mobile Robot Competition Robotics Competition Comer R o b i n R. M u r p h y
The 1998 AAAI Mobile Robot Competition illustrated the state-of-the-practice in robotics in an entertaining forum. At the same time, it suggested that robotic technologies are ripe for use in undergraduate education. The competition was held in conjunction with the AAAI National Conference, July 26-30,1998, in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, and attracted eight teams from McGill University, the TRAC Laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center, University of New Mexico, University of North Dakota, University of Southern California, and the University of Texas at Arlington. Prof. Robin Murphy (University of South Florida), Prof. Greg Dudek (McGill University), and Dr. David Kortenkamp were competition co-chairs, and the event was sponsored in part by the US Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA), with a companion workshop funded by the US National Science Foundation. The competition consisted of two separate events: Hors d'oeuvres Anyone? and Find Life on Mars. These events were introduced in the 1997 competition. The purpose of the Hors d'oeuvres Anyone? event was to test the ability of robots to interact with humans. A team of one or more robots circulates a reception area serving finger food to the audience. Robots that can interact and communicate with humans in a natural way, and determine when their tray is empty are scored higher than robots which merely wander without colliding with humans or furniture. The major change in the rules for this year 'was to allow the robots to lightly nudge humans. In 1997, robots were often hemmed in by the crowd and could not demonstrate their navigational abilities. The F~!ndLife on Mars event remained Elsevier Science B.V.
largely the same as 1997, where teams of robots were expected to collect small brightly colored objects and carry them to a very realistic looking "return vehicle," provided by Prof. Doug Blank, Indiana University. As with the 1997 competition, the Hors d'oeuvres Anyone ? event generated the most excitement among the audience. Four robot teams worked continuously for two hours serving finger food on trays at the conference reception. The robots were allowed to move freely, and there were no partitions to "fence" the robots in. The University of North Dakota, USA, entry took first place, both in the technical merit category and in a vote of popularity by the audience. The University of North Dakota team used a single ActivMedia Pioneer robot (http://www.activmedia.com). They added a commercial speech recognition system to allow the audience to command the robot to go away or fetch more food; the system was able to recognize about 40% of the commands, depending on the background noise in the reception area and how close the speaker was willing to get to the robot and microphone. Another ambitious aspect was the attempt to fuse motion detection and skin color to determine how often people reached into the tray and got food. Although the team members worked for several days before the event, they could not get the skin-color algorithm to work reliably under the challenging lighting conditions in the reception area. The most surprising aspect of the University of North Dakota entry was that the team was comprised solely of undergraduates, funded for the summer by a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates grant.
130
R.R. Murphy~Robotics and Autonomous Systems 25 (1998) 129-131
The Find Life on Mars event was divided into two categories: object manipulation and object recognition. Once again, the crowd was clearly disappointed to see teams of one or more small robots using random search under a distributed control paradigm, rather than state-of-the-art algorithms in mapping, localization, and search. The University of Texas Arlington team, again consisting solely of undergraduates, took first place in object manipulation winning with simple, but reliable behaviors. Another disappointment was that vision processing was generally color blob detection, with the notable exception of McGill University's entry. McGill took first place in object recognition, recognizing polyhedral shapes as well as colors. It also attempted to use Kalman Filtering to fuse vision, sonar, and odometry in order to win additional points for creating an accurate map. The sensor models developed for their laboratory did not transfer to the competition arena, and this functionality was not included in the final round. The 1998 AAAI Competition was thought provoking in many ways. First, it showed how far AI robotics has come since its inception in 1992. Capabilities which seemed all but impossible in 1992 are now being programmed by undergraduates, often at universities without an established research program in robotics. The sizable undergraduate participation is both a tribute to progress, and a concern for the future of the competition. The concern is that the changing demographics of the entrants is subtly altering the mission of the competition from promoting research to illustrating the state-of-the-practice. Unfortunately, there appears to be no competition targeted for undergraduate participation. Perhaps the large participation of undergraduates is a sign that there are too many robot competitions, all trying to specify domains which foster cuttingedge innovations. Many of the traditional entrants (Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, University of Bonn, etc.) either chose not to compete in any competition and concentrate on domains of more direct relevance to their research, shifted their focus to forums such as RoboCup, or even merely demonstrated their work at the AAAI Robot Exhibition held concurrently. Indeed, there is some tension in the AAAI and IJCAI communities over suggestions to eliminate the competition altogether and replace it with RoboCup.
Another trend to emerge from the 1998 competition is the use of small platforms, such as the Pioneer. Many teams used the microwave sized Pioneers, while only one entry relied on the taller, more cylindrical robots made by Nomadic and RWI, which used to dominate the competition. The ankle-high Pioneers were ill-suited for serving food, and the resulting additions to make the robots taller resulted in amusing, but unstable, food delivery mechanisms. The University of Southern California team of three robot waiters, in particular, captivated onlookers with their gravity defying, low tech manipulators. Perhaps the most thought provoking issue to emerge is whether it is time to introduce robotics into undergraduate education. The need for undergraduate robotics courses was particularly evident during the workshop held the day after the competition. Each team gave a 5 to 15 minute presentation on the technical details of their approach, and answered extensive questions as to what worked and what didn't. The workshop revealed that most of the teams were unfamiliar with the seminal literature in AI robotics, and had little exposure to basic concepts. Only one of the four undergraduate teams could identify what architecture they were using; in that instance, the Saphira architecture which came with the Pioneers. The commendable showings by the undergraduates appeared to be the result of ingenuity combined with available software rather than a formal exposure to AI robotics in a classroom or even through outside readings. Imagine the results if these talented students had formal training! Perhaps it is time for universities to consider migrating robotics to the undergraduate curriculum, much the same way surveys of AI and expert systems are now regularly taught to juniors and seniors. Fortunately, undergraduate robotics education is being addressed by a variety of sources. For example, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society has tasked their educational committee to look at ways to facilitate undergraduate education. AAAI is putting together a web page of resources for teaching robotics (http://www.aaai.org). Likewise, MIT Press anticipates a February, 2000, publication date for an undergraduate textbook, Introduction to A I Robotics. For more information about the 1998 entries, note that detailed discussions of the entries in the AAAI competition generally appear the following summer
R.R. Murphy~Robotics and Autonomous Systems 25 (1998) 129-131
131
in AI Magazine. In acidition, the co-chairs expect to edit a special issue of Autonomous Robots (Feb. 2000) with invited articles from the 1998 winners. The special issue will also contain highlights from the companion Robot Exhibition. The events and rules for the 1999 competition are still under discussion; watch the A A A I website (http://www.aaai.org) for the latest information. Robin R. Murphy received the B.M.E. degree in 1980, the
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science in 1989 and 1992, respectively, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is currently an associate professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, USA. Prof. Murphy has been involved in numerous AI robotics competitions as a team advisor and judge since 1992, has co-edited Artificial Intelligence for Mobile Robots containing case steadies of AI approaches to the annual AAAI and UGR competitions, and is writing an undergraduate textbook, Introduction to AI Robotics, for MIT Press.
Fig. 1. Participants in the 1998 AAAI Robot Competition with their (smaller) robots.
Robotics and Autonomous Systems 25 (1998) 129-131
1998 AAAI Mobile Robot Competition Robotics Competition Comer R o b i n R. M u r p h y
The 1998 AAAI Mobile Robot Competition illustrated the state-of-the-practice in robotics in an entertaining forum. At the same time, it suggested that robotic technologies are ripe for use in undergraduate education. The competition was held in conjunction with the AAAI National Conference, July 26-30,1998, in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, and attracted eight teams from McGill University, the TRAC Laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center, University of New Mexico, University of North Dakota, University of Southern California, and the University of Texas at Arlington. Prof. Robin Murphy (University of South Florida), Prof. Greg Dudek (McGill University), and Dr. David Kortenkamp were competition co-chairs, and the event was sponsored in part by the US Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA), with a companion workshop funded by the US National Science Foundation. The competition consisted of two separate events: Hors d'oeuvres Anyone? and Find Life on Mars. These events were introduced in the 1997 competition. The purpose of the Hors d'oeuvres Anyone? event was to test the ability of robots to interact with humans. A team of one or more robots circulates a reception area serving finger food to the audience. Robots that can interact and communicate with humans in a natural way, and determine when their tray is empty are scored higher than robots which merely wander without colliding with humans or furniture. The major change in the rules for this year 'was to allow the robots to lightly nudge humans. In 1997, robots were often hemmed in by the crowd and could not demonstrate their navigational abilities. The F~!ndLife on Mars event remained Elsevier Science B.V.
largely the same as 1997, where teams of robots were expected to collect small brightly colored objects and carry them to a very realistic looking "return vehicle," provided by Prof. Doug Blank, Indiana University. As with the 1997 competition, the Hors d'oeuvres Anyone ? event generated the most excitement among the audience. Four robot teams worked continuously for two hours serving finger food on trays at the conference reception. The robots were allowed to move freely, and there were no partitions to "fence" the robots in. The University of North Dakota, USA, entry took first place, both in the technical merit category and in a vote of popularity by the audience. The University of North Dakota team used a single ActivMedia Pioneer robot (http://www.activmedia.com). They added a commercial speech recognition system to allow the audience to command the robot to go away or fetch more food; the system was able to recognize about 40% of the commands, depending on the background noise in the reception area and how close the speaker was willing to get to the robot and microphone. Another ambitious aspect was the attempt to fuse motion detection and skin color to determine how often people reached into the tray and got food. Although the team members worked for several days before the event, they could not get the skin-color algorithm to work reliably under the challenging lighting conditions in the reception area. The most surprising aspect of the University of North Dakota entry was that the team was comprised solely of undergraduates, funded for the summer by a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates grant.
130
R.R. Murphy~Robotics and Autonomous Systems 25 (1998) 129-131
The Find Life on Mars event was divided into two categories: object manipulation and object recognition. Once again, the crowd was clearly disappointed to see teams of one or more small robots using random search under a distributed control paradigm, rather than state-of-the-art algorithms in mapping, localization, and search. The University of Texas Arlington team, again consisting solely of undergraduates, took first place in object manipulation winning with simple, but reliable behaviors. Another disappointment was that vision processing was generally color blob detection, with the notable exception of McGill University's entry. McGill took first place in object recognition, recognizing polyhedral shapes as well as colors. It also attempted to use Kalman Filtering to fuse vision, sonar, and odometry in order to win additional points for creating an accurate map. The sensor models developed for their laboratory did not transfer to the competition arena, and this functionality was not included in the final round. The 1998 AAAI Competition was thought provoking in many ways. First, it showed how far AI robotics has come since its inception in 1992. Capabilities which seemed all but impossible in 1992 are now being programmed by undergraduates, often at universities without an established research program in robotics. The sizable undergraduate participation is both a tribute to progress, and a concern for the future of the competition. The concern is that the changing demographics of the entrants is subtly altering the mission of the competition from promoting research to illustrating the state-of-the-practice. Unfortunately, there appears to be no competition targeted for undergraduate participation. Perhaps the large participation of undergraduates is a sign that there are too many robot competitions, all trying to specify domains which foster cuttingedge innovations. Many of the traditional entrants (Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, University of Bonn, etc.) either chose not to compete in any competition and concentrate on domains of more direct relevance to their research, shifted their focus to forums such as RoboCup, or even merely demonstrated their work at the AAAI Robot Exhibition held concurrently. Indeed, there is some tension in the AAAI and IJCAI communities over suggestions to eliminate the competition altogether and replace it with RoboCup.
Another trend to emerge from the 1998 competition is the use of small platforms, such as the Pioneer. Many teams used the microwave sized Pioneers, while only one entry relied on the taller, more cylindrical robots made by Nomadic and RWI, which used to dominate the competition. The ankle-high Pioneers were ill-suited for serving food, and the resulting additions to make the robots taller resulted in amusing, but unstable, food delivery mechanisms. The University of Southern California team of three robot waiters, in particular, captivated onlookers with their gravity defying, low tech manipulators. Perhaps the most thought provoking issue to emerge is whether it is time to introduce robotics into undergraduate education. The need for undergraduate robotics courses was particularly evident during the workshop held the day after the competition. Each team gave a 5 to 15 minute presentation on the technical details of their approach, and answered extensive questions as to what worked and what didn't. The workshop revealed that most of the teams were unfamiliar with the seminal literature in AI robotics, and had little exposure to basic concepts. Only one of the four undergraduate teams could identify what architecture they were using; in that instance, the Saphira architecture which came with the Pioneers. The commendable showings by the undergraduates appeared to be the result of ingenuity combined with available software rather than a formal exposure to AI robotics in a classroom or even through outside readings. Imagine the results if these talented students had formal training! Perhaps it is time for universities to consider migrating robotics to the undergraduate curriculum, much the same way surveys of AI and expert systems are now regularly taught to juniors and seniors. Fortunately, undergraduate robotics education is being addressed by a variety of sources. For example, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society has tasked their educational committee to look at ways to facilitate undergraduate education. AAAI is putting together a web page of resources for teaching robotics (http://www.aaai.org). Likewise, MIT Press anticipates a February, 2000, publication date for an undergraduate textbook, Introduction to A I Robotics. For more information about the 1998 entries, note that detailed discussions of the entries in the AAAI competition generally appear the following summer
R.R. Murphy~Robotics and Autonomous Systems 25 (1998) 129-131
131
in AI Magazine. In acidition, the co-chairs expect to edit a special issue of Autonomous Robots (Feb. 2000) with invited articles from the 1998 winners. The special issue will also contain highlights from the companion Robot Exhibition. The events and rules for the 1999 competition are still under discussion; watch the A A A I website (http://www.aaai.org) for the latest information. Robin R. Murphy received the B.M.E. degree in 1980, the
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science in 1989 and 1992, respectively, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is currently an associate professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, USA. Prof. Murphy has been involved in numerous AI robotics competitions as a team advisor and judge since 1992, has co-edited Artificial Intelligence for Mobile Robots containing case steadies of AI approaches to the annual AAAI and UGR competitions, and is writing an undergraduate textbook, Introduction to AI Robotics, for MIT Press.
Fig. 1. Participants in the 1998 AAAI Robot Competition with their (smaller) robots.