IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2016 - 17

RoCKIn aims to foster scientific
progress and innovation in cognitive
systems and robotics. Pedro Lima from
the Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Portugal, described and
discussed how the RoCKIn challenges
[5] are oriented toward indoor end-user
scenarios, which catch the interest of
both the general public and the scientific community.
The manufacturing industry needs
competitive solutions to keep global leadership in products and services, and
Rainer Bischoff from KUKA Laboratories GmbH, presented the lessons learned
from EuRoCs [6] toward that aim.
euRathlon is an outdoor robotics
competition that invites teams to test
the intelligence and autonomy of their
robots in realistic mock emergencyresponse scenarios [7]. Alan Winfield,
from the University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom, presented the lessons learned from the
euRathlon trial for 2015.

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One that can work without safety cages, is portable,
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Automation gave true advantages
in the Metal & Machining industry
* Faucet maker, RSS Manufacturing
& Phylrich in Costa Mesa, CA, needed
an inexpensive automation solution that
could easily be moved between CNC
machines, assembly lines and tube benders.
A collaborative robot from Universal Robots
met the challenge: Production output more
than doubled, opening up 30% more capacity
on existing machinery.
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Some robotic competitions concentrate more on technical challenges considered as critical for the advancement of
robotic technologies and impact on society.
Competitions and
This is the apprizes achieve
proach of the
DARPA Robotinnovative changes
ics Challenge
by influencing
and, more recently, of initiasociety or specific
tives such as
communities and
CYBATHLON
[8], the MBZ Inindividuals.
ternational Robotic Challenge
(MBZIRC) [9], or Robots for Good [10].
CYBATHLON is a competition
that addresses athletes with disabilities
[8]. The competition is a championship for pilots with disabilities who are
using advanced assistive devices
including robotic technologies. Dario
Floreano, from the Advisory Board of

WIN A

The workshop initiated a discussion
with the RoboCup competition. RoboCup is one of the most well-known
robotics competitions and was proposed by the artificial intelligence and
robotics community in 1993. The first
public event took place in Nagoya,
Japan, during IJCAI'97 [4]. In 1997,
RoboCup made its first steps toward the
development of robotic soccer players
that can beat a human World Cup
champion team. The history of and key
aspects for the development of RoboCup were presented by Manuela Veloso
from Carnegie Melon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
More recent robotic competitions
foster scientific progress and innovation
in robotics through the design and
implementation of competitions for
solving societal challenges and securing
industrial competitiveness. That is the
case of competitions such as RoCKIn
[5], the European Robotics Challenges
(EuRoCs) [6], and EuRathlon [7].

march 2016

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2016