The NimbRo team from the University of Bonn has confidently defended its title in the RoboCup German Open competition for household robots. The service robots competed in the open German championships in Nuremberg from March 13 to 16. The assistance robots for everyday environments are being developed under the direction of Prof. Dr. Sven Behnke at the Chair of Autonomous Intelligent Systems at the Institute of Computer Science. They interact with humans using a voice dialog system, can pick up and place objects and navigate in everyday environments.
The open German RoboCup championships take place annually. In the @Home league, assistance robots are tested to support people in need of help in everyday environments. The robots have to prove their abilities in nine tests in realistic domestic environments. They have to receive visitors and introduce them to other people, help carry luggage, enforce house rules, put away shopping, tidy up the kitchen and serve guests in a restaurant. The robots prove that they can interact with users using speech and body language, navigate independently in confined spaces and pick up, transport and place everyday objects.
Two tests in which the task to be solved is communicated by voice commands are particularly challenging. The NimbRo@Home team used two mobile robots with human-like upper bodies for these tasks. They perceive their surroundings using cameras, laser scanners and a microphone and control numerous motors and a loudspeaker to perform assistance tasks independently. Methods from artificial intelligence (AI) research, such as image and speech comprehension, action and movement planning and dialog systems, are crucial here.
Two new skills secure victory in the final
NimbRo already took a clear lead in the preliminary round and was able to extend its lead in the main round. In the final, the robots from the University of Bonn demonstrated two new skills for the first time: Closing a cupboard door and opening the front door. In the overall standings, NimbRo achieved almost three times as many points as the second-best team ToBI from Bielefeld University.
“In the future, assistance robots will make an important contribution to enabling people in need of help to live independently in their familiar surroundings for longer,” says Prof. Dr. Sven Behnke, Head of the Autonomous Intelligent Systems working group and Director of the Institute of Computer Science VI - Intelligent Systems and Robotics at the University of Bonn, who is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRA) ‘Modelling’ and ‘Sustainable Futures’, the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence, the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and the Center for Robotics.