Competing in Robotics

RoboCup Junior is an international competition for the construction and programming of robots. It’s a part of the major RoboCup initiative – one of the biggest robot competitions in the world, with thousands of participants from over 40 countries.

Linköping students are organising the Swedish qualifying rounds for RoboCup Junior (in Swedish Junior-VM i robotik) where children and young people up to the age of 19 can take part. The winners get to represent Sweden in the 2015 international finals, which will be held in Hefei, China.

Mr Löfgren, who is in the fourth year of his studies for a master’s in Engineering Physics and Electronics, is a previous participant in the competition and current project leader for the RoboCup Junior finals in Linköping. He is the youngest ever member of the technical committee, which is mainly composed of eminent researchers and teachers.

“RoboCup Junior has been held in Sweden since 2009. I took part the very first year, won

the competition, and got to represent Sweden at the world championship in Austria.”

Since then, Mr Löfgren has won many competitions, in which he got to do things such as represent Sweden in Singapore and compete in the World Championships in Istanbul.

“After that I was too old; in 2012 I became team leader for one team and a judge for the national competition. I was also appointed to the international organizing committee of RoboCup Junior Rescue, and the technical committee.”

He has also been involved on the international stage, for example in Brazil where he wrote the rules for the next year’s competition. He was also team leader at the World Championships in Eindhoven. In 2013, Mr Löfgren started a student society whose aim was to organise RoboCup Junior in Sweden. The FIA student association (the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Society) grew, and now RoboCup Junior is just one of many events the society organises each year.

How do you select the participants?

“I was chosen as project leader for the competition by the board of the FIA, and then I appointed a project team of five people to help me plan and organise the competition in Linköping.”

The FIA is also organising a competition for university students and the public in conjunction with RoboCup Junior, so that more people can get the chance to compete with robots.

“I love to compete and I’ve competed in knowledge for a very long time,” Mr Löfgren says.

Robots around the dinner tableWhat has your involvement given you in practical terms?
“Being involved with robots has given me a great advantage in my studies here at the university. I have learned a great deal not only about electronics, programming and construction, but also about leadership and other cultures on my many travels, as well as how to collaborate on international projects.”

Mr Löfgren thinks it’s great to see how older researchers and professors listen to what he has to say, and he is looking forward to the next cooking competition that will be held in Madrid in November. It will consist of seeing how well the robots manage to cook tomato soup, write a shopping list and find and switch off a stove hob that has been left on.

He has already been offered jobs, but turned them down as he wants to finish his studies first before he starts his “real” working life.

Developing robots for space, robots that explore other planets and robots that work in caring for the elderly by doing all the heavy work so that staff can devote time to their personal contact with elderly people, are examples of dream jobs.

“I want to develop the technology of tomorrow and I’m open to everything that has to do with the development of technology. As I have worked with robots for 15 years, they are very dear to my heart.”

Text: Zen Dinah, student reporter
Photo: Julius Jeuthe, student photographer

Source: Linköping University

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Getting Bot Besponders into Shape - Scientists are tackling one of the biggest barriers to the use of robots in emergency response: energy efficiency

Steve Buerger is leading a Sandia National Laboratories project to demonstrate how energy efficient biped walking robots could become. Increased efficiency could enable bots to operate for much longer periods of time without recharging batteries, an important factor in emergency situations. Credit: Photo by Randy Montoya

Sandia National Laboratories is tackling one of the biggest barriers to the use of robots in emergency response: energy efficiency.

Through a project supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Sandia is developing technology that will dramatically improve the endurance of legged robots, helping them operate for long periods while performing the types of locomotion most relevant to disaster response scenarios.

One of Sandia's new robots that showcases this technology will be demonstrated at an exposition to be held in conjunction with the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals next June.

As the finals draw closer, some of the most advanced robotics research and development organizations in the world are racing to develop emergency response robots that can complete a battery of tasks specified by DARPA. Competing robots will face degraded physical environments that simulate conditions likely to occur in a natural or human-made disaster. Many robots will walk on legs to allow them to negotiate challenging terrain.

Sandia's robots won't compete in the finals next June, but they could ultimately help the winning robots extend their battery life until their life-saving work is done.

"We'll demonstrate how energy efficient biped walking robots could become. Increased efficiency could allow robots similar to those used for the competition to operate for much longer periods of time without recharging batteries," said project lead Steve Buerger of Sandia's Intelligent Systems Control Dept.

Batteries need to last for emergency response robots

Battery life is an important concern in the usefulness of robots for emergency response.
"You can have the biggest, baddest, toughest robot on the planet, but if its battery life is 10 or 20 minutes, as many are right now, that robot cannot possibly function in an emergency situation, when lives are at stake," said Buerger.

The first robot Sandia is developing in support of the DARPA Challenge, is known as STEPPR for Sandia Transmission Efficient Prototype Promoting Research. It is a fully functional research platform that allows developers to try different joint-level mechanisms that function like elbows and knees to quantify how much energy is used.

Sandia's second robot, WANDERER for Walking Anthropomorphic Novelly Driven Efficient Robot for Emergency Response, will be a more optimized and better-packaged prototype.

Energy-efficient actuators key to testing

The key to the testing is Sandia's novel, energy-efficient actuators, which move the robots' joints. The actuation system uses efficient, brushless DC motors with very high torque-to-weight ratios, very efficient low-ratio transmissions and specially designed passive mechanisms customized for each joint to ensure energy efficiency.

"We take advantage of dynamic characteristics that are common to a wide variety of legged behaviors and add a set of 'support elements,' including springs and variable transmissions, that keep the motors operating at more efficient speed-torque conditions, reducing losses," Buerger said.

Electric motors are particularly inefficient when providing large torques at low speeds, for example, to a crouching robot, Buerger said. A simple support element, such as a spring, would provide torque, reducing the load on the motor.

"The support elements also allow robots to self-adjust when they change behaviors. When they change from level walking to uphill walking, for example, they can make subtle adjustments to their joint dynamics to optimize efficiency under the new condition," Buerger said.

Robots must adapt to the diverse kinds of conditions expected in emergency response scenarios.
"Certain legged robot designs are extremely efficient when walking on level ground, but function extremely inefficiently under other conditions or cannot walk over different types of terrains. Robots need an actuation system to enable efficient locomotion in many different conditions," Buerger said. "That is what the adjustable support elements can do."

Early testing has shown STEPPR to operate efficiently and quietly.

"Noise is lost energy, so being quiet goes hand-in-hand with being efficient. Most robots make a lot of noise, and that can be a major drawback for some applications," Buerger said.

Robots' electronics, certain software to be publicly released

STEPPR's and WANDERER's electronics and low-level software are being developed by the Open Source Robotics Foundation. The designs will be publicly released, allowing engineers and designers all over the world to take advantage of advances.

The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition is developing energy-efficient walking control algorithms for both robots. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Globe Motors also are contributing to the project.

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Source: Sandia National Laboratories

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