Fourth place with Pepper the robot in household service league of German RoboCup

The team from Bielefeld University’s Cluster of Excellence CITEC, “ToBi” (Team of Bielefeld) took fourth place in the household service league of the RoboCup German Open competition, which was held in Magdeburg. From 27–29 April, the team, which is made up mainly of students, proved itself worth with Pepper the robot, and is thus set to go for the world championship in June.

Eight international teams competed in the household service league of the German RoboCup Open in Magdeburg. The top three spots went to Koblenz-Landau, Eindhoven and Mexico. The CITEC team won fourth place with Pepper the robot and also received a certificate for the best performance with Pepper.

The goal of this league is to advance the development of autonomous robots that provide support for domestic household tasks and accompany humans in their daily lives. The Bielefeld students further developed Pepper’s software, enabling the robot to more robustly recognize humans and react to its environment.

Pepper had to prove its skill as a household assistant in various tasks, including recognizing groups of people, serving as a waiter, bringing groceries into the house, setting the table, and successfully orienting itself in unfamiliar surroundings, among other tasks.

The competition in Magdeburg serves as a preparatory tournament for the annual RoboCup world championship. During the world championship competition, which will be held from 18–22 June in Montreal, Canada, the household service league will be subdivided into three sub-leagues. The Bielefeld team will compete in the Social Standard Platform League (SSPL) against approximately ten other teams. In the SSPL league, teams may only participate with Pepper the robot, which was produced by the company Softbank.
Beyond the household service league, RoboCup is also known for its soccer league in which robots play soccer against one another. Other leagues deal with human rescue and industrial manufacturing. This year, the Bielefeld Team has nine students who are enrolled in the Bachelor’s degree program Cognitive Informatics and in the Master’s degree program Intelligent Systems. The students are advised by Dr.-Ing Sven Wachsmuth and his research associate Florian Lier from the Cluster of Excellence CITEC at Bielefeld University. The Bielefeld team has been participating in RoboCup competitions since 2009.

Contact:
Dr.-Ing. Sven Wachsmuth
Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC)
Telephone: 0521 106-2937
Email: swachsmu@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de

More information is available online at:
German RoboCup Championship: www.robocupgermanopen.de
RoboCup World Championship 2018: www.robocup2018.org