The ICRA 2013 Mobile Manipulation Challenge

Table of Contents


Theme: Robot’s Kitchen

The ICRA 2013 Mobile Manipulation Challenge is built around the theme of “Robot’s Kitchen”. The challenge will be held May 6-10, 2013 as part of ICRA 2013. Teams are allowed to use their own robots or the PR2 robots that will be provided by the organizers.

Important Dates

Jan 15, 2013: Contact sachinc AT willowgarage.com to specify your intent to participate in the ICRA 2013 mobile manipulation challenge. Please provide the following details:

  1. Full names of all team members with affiliation and research interests
  2. Robot you will be using
  3. Proposed team name
  4. Intent to participate in the Pre-Challenge Workshop at Willow Garage. If you intend to participate in this workshop, please include a separate one-page document with the following information:
    • Your experience level with ROS
      • Beginner – just ran through ROS tutorials
      • Intermediate – Can run the navigation stack or the manipulation stack or object recognition or equivalent tasks (on a robot or in simulation)
      • Expert – Wrote my own components for navigation, perception, or manipulation (on a robot or in simulation)
    • Your programming experience
      • Preferred language (C++, Python, etc.)
      • Experience level with the language on a scale of (1-10)
        • 1 = you can write and run a “Hello world” program
        • 10 = you wrote the reference book on C++
    • Links to any videos of demonstrations that you have done with robots
    • A brief paragraph describing why you would like to participate in the challenge (see Registration page for more details. Also see the FAQ).

March 4-8, 2013: – Pre-Challenge Workshop at Willow Garage
March 15, 2013 (Qualification Deadline): Email the organizers a video showing your robot performing part of the task expected for the challenge.
May 2013: Challenge at ICRA 2013

Prizes

  1. The top team will be awarded TurtleBot 2 robots (up to 3 robots) and a chance for an internship at Willow Garage.
  2. The next two teams will be awarded TurtleBot robots (up to 3 robots each).
  3. All participants will receive ICRA Challenge t-shirts.
  4. We are trying to put together a special journal issue for the Challenge.

Winners will be chosen based on a scoring system for the tasks outlined below. The organizers retain the right to modify the scoring system before the challenge (with sufficient advance notice to the participants). The organizers also retain the right to set a minimum score that must be achieved to win prizes.

THE CHALLENGE

“Robot’s Kitchen” is a kitchen operated by autonomous robots. The robots perform two duties: (1) serve breakfast, clean up after breakfast and (2) retrieve and set up ingredients and other items for the chef to start making lunch. The intent of this challenge is to push the state of the art in autonomous mobile manipulation, integrating perception, manipulation, navigation and other capabilities. This challenge is an annual event, building on the “Yesterday’s Sushi Challenge” at ICRA 2012. The environment is human-scale. There are no constraints on the robot hardware used. The organizers will provide two PR2 robots for participants wishing to use the PR2 robot (See section on Hardware/Robots below). All robot operation is expected to be fully autonomous once the challenge starts and teams will not be allowed to tele-operate their robots after the challenge starts.

Environment Specification
Your robot will have to operate in a rectangular room of approximately 6.5 m x 4 m. Walls of at least 50 cm height will surround the room (the door will be closed after the robot enters the room). The room contains multiple pieces of furniture: three tables and two shelves. Additionally, we can bring in chairs that can be pushed in the environment (note that this is optional).

Tables

There will be three tables: A prep/serving table, a dirty dishes table and a turntable.

  1. The prep/serving table is rectangular, approximately 1.25 m x 0.75 m in surface area, at a height that is ADA compliant (see ADA Guidelines for Accessible tables below). The serving table is at least 1 m away from other furniture (except chairs) and from walls.
  2. The dirty table is again rectangular, is next to a wall, and is initially empty. This is the location where the dishes with leftovers from the serving table need to be taken to. The dirty table will also be placed next to a wall.
  3. The turntable is circular and rotates at a constant velocity of at most 20 degrees/s. A few objects will be placed on this table.

Shelves

  • The cupboard/shelf can be considered to be a collection of horizontal shelves. The shelves may be open on the sides and the back. The shelves that contain objects will be located at a height of 0.0 m to 1.5 m from the ground.
  • Some shelves may have DOORS on them (i.e. the shelves will be cabinets).
  • Some items may be inside DRAWERS.

The robot will have no more a priori information about the geometry and location of these tables and shelves apart from these specifications.

Objects

Objects that the robot is expected to manipulate (referred to as manipulable objects) will come from two classes:

  • Class A: Bowls, cups, glasses, ingredient boxes, cans, tins, plastic bottles (e.g. ketchup bottle, mustard bottle)
  • Class B: Forks, knives, spoons, plates, napkins, washcloths, deformable packets, large boxes (bigger than 6 inches in each dimension), large wooden bowls, large spoons (e.g. salad spoons)

Objects may be stacked on one another, e.g. plates might be stacked on top of each other or silverware (knives, forks,spoons) may be found on top of plates or bowls. Objects may be plain or textured.

Registered teams can use their own objects but some objects will be provided by the organizers. See Data/Training sections below for more information.

TASKS

There are two different tasks that the teams must perform: Breakfast and Prep.

TASK 1: Breakfast

The scenario starts with the robot in the kitchen. At that point the challenge begins and the robot has to perform the following tasks.

  1. If there are any instances of manipulable objects already on the breakfast table, the robot is first expected to clear the table and move all these objects onto the dirty table. The robot is not expected to wipe the serving table.
  2. The robot is then expected to set one place setting at a designated location on the serving table. A place setting consists of one object each from the following: a plate, a glass OR a cup, a knife and a fork. The exact arrangement of the objects on the table is not strictly enforced but all the objects should be reasonably close to one another (within a circle of radius 20 cm).
  3. The robot is then expected to pick up one bowl of cereal (dry cereal) from the rotating turntable or shelf and put it on the serving table.
  4. BONUS TASK A – (DYNAMIC BUTLER): Robot moves to one corner of the room and opens its gripper. A flat tray is placed in the robot’s gripper. Robot will grasp the tray and turn it horizontal. A wine glass (full of dry cereal) will be placed on the tray and the robot must move the glass to the table and put the tray down on the table without spilling the (dry contents) in the glass or the glass itself.
  5. BONUS TASK B – (NAPKIN FOLDING): Pick up a (cloth) napkin from a pile of napkins, fold it into a square and place it by the place setting.

Time

Each robot will have only 20 minutes for this task.

Scoring

  1. Items in Class A have 5 points.
  2. Items in Class B have 10 points.
  3. Fetching an item from behind a door will multiply points for that item by 2.
  4. Fetching an item from the turntable will multiply points for that item by 2.
  5. Spilling cereal from the bowl will mean a complete loss of points for that item.
  6. Dropping an item, or any potentially damaging contact with the environment while carrying an item will mean a complete loss of points for that item.
  7. The Bonus Tasks will score 20 points each.
  8. Exceeding the time limit for the task (including bonus tasks) is not allowed. All teams must stop at the end of their time.
  9. Teams that complete the whole task within 10 minutes will have their entire score multiplied by 2.
  10. Teams that complete the whole task within 15 minutes will have their entire score multiplied by 1.25.

The scoring system has not been finalized and the organizers retain the right to modify the scoring system before the challenge.

TASK 2:Prep

The scenario starts with the robot in the kitchen. At that point the challenge begins and the robot has to perform the following tasks.

  1. The robot will be given a pre-specified list of 8 items (ingredients, bowls, spoons, etc.) that the chef needs to prepare the next meal. This list will be chosen from a list of 30 items given to the participants well in advance of the challenge and the workshop. If the participants bring their own objects, the organizers will choose 8 items from among the objects brought by the participants and the objects brought by the organizers. The 8 items will always include some objects from the organizers.
  2. The robot is expected to fetch all ingredients from the shelves and put them on the serving/prep table.
  3. A tray will be available for the robot to use to carry multiple items.
  4. Items may be stored inside the cabinets behind a door.

Time

Each robot will have only 20 minutes for this task.

Scoring

  1. Items in Class A have 5 points.
  2. Items in Class B have 10 points.
  3. Fetching an item from behind a door will multiply points for that item by 1.5.
  4. Fetching an item from the turntable will multiply points for that item by 1.5.
  5. Using a tray to carry multiple items will multiply all points for those items by 2.
  6. Dropping an item, or any potentially damaging contact with the environment while carrying an item will mean a complete loss of points for that item.
  7. Exceeding the time limit for the task (including bonus tasks) will reduce the total points earned by half. Teams who stop at the time limit will retain all points earned up to that point.
  8. Teams that complete the whole task within 10 minutes will have their entire score multiplied by 2.
  9. Teams that complete the whole task within 15 minutes will have their entire score multiplied by 1.25.

The scoring system has not been finalized and the organizers retain the right to modify the scoring system before the challenge.

HARDWARE/ROBOTS

Teams are free to use any robots. Teams are responsible for support (travel, repair, spare parts, computing, wireless network) for their own robots. No on-site support will be provided for the robots by the organizers. Teams must ensure that all robots are safe for operation around people. A dedicated team member must always carry a wireless e-stop that can be used to stop the robot instantly if it may harm a person or damage the environment. The team must obey all instructions from the organizers regarding safe operation of their robots. The organizers retain the right to disqualify any team whose robots/software is judged to be behaving in a manner where it places team members, other teams, the organizers or the audience in danger.

The organizers will separately provide 2 PR2 robots for use in this competition. Minor hardware adjustments to the PR2s are allowed (such as addition of tools), as long as they can be performed in a feasible manner, on-site within 15 minutes. Teams planning hardware modifications of this form for the PR2 robots will need to provide details and get permission from the organizers well before the competition. Teams who choose to use the PR2 robots must contact the organizers to register their intent to do so. The number of teams allowed to use the 2 robots will be limited due to time and logistical constraints.

OBJECTS

The objects in the challenge will be a combination of objects brought by the team and objects in each class provided by the organizers. Teams can bring their own objects: they need to have the following categories and quantities,

  • 2 textured plates
  • 2 non-textured plates
  • 2 cups or 2 glasses
  • 2 knives, 2 forks, 2 spoons
  • 2 ingredient boxes – e.g. cereal boxes, cookies, spice boxes
  • 2 cans – e.g. soda/soft drink cans, soup cans
  • 1 salt shaker, 1 pepper grinder
  • 2 plastic bottles – e.g. ketchup, maple syrup, etc.
  • 2 deformable packets – e.g. rice, nuts
  • 2 larger boxes – e.g. a US Postal Service Medium Box 1 – 11 1/4″ x 8 3/4″ x 6″

Those objects should be regular human-scale objects. Please note that in the actual challenge, the organizers will provide a bunch of objects which will be used along with any objects the teams may bring. The choice of objects that the teams have to manipulate will ultimately rest with the organizers.

ADA Guidelines

The environment specification laid out above is the full specification provided to all the teams. No more information will be provided other than the following:
ADA Guidelines for Accessible Tables
An accessible table has a surface height of no more than 87 cm and no less than 72 cm above the floor. At least 69 cm of knee clearance must be provided between the floor and the underside of the table. An accessible route provides access to each accessible table and a clear floor area 76 cm by 122 cm is provided at each accessible seating location. This clear floor area extends 49 cm under the table to provide leg and knee clearance.

DATA/TRAINING

Teams will have an opportunity before the day of the challenge to spend at most 1 hour each in the challenge arena and with the objects. Teams may use this time to build maps, collect data on the objects, try out strategies, etc. The time limit will be strictly enforced – teams should be ready to start at the beginning of their time slot and will have to stop working in the arena after 1 hour.

The organizers will also provide pre-built 2D maps of the environment for navigation. The organizers may also provide 3D maps of the environment but teams should not expect object placements, types of objects in environment etc. to be fixed.

PRE-CHALLENGE WORKSHOP

As preparation for the Challenge, (an optional) pre-challenge workshop will be held at Willow Garage in California in the first week of March, 2013 (Dates are not final). The top three teams from the workshop will be provided a travel grant of $5000 (per team) to attend ICRA 2013 to participate in the Challenge. If winning team members already have travel funding for the ICRA 2013 conference, they may elect to use the funds for travel to other robotics conferences in 2013 (IROS 2013, RSS 2013). Winning team-members must participate in the ICRA 2013 Mobile Manipulation Challenge to qualify for use of the travel funds.

To participate in the pre-challenge workshop, participants must be familiar with ROS. Participation in the workshop is limited (for logistical reasons). Participants will be chosen based on their application (see the Registration page for details on how to apply to be a part of the workshop). Participants will be expected to cover their own costs for travel and accomodation for the Workshop but breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided by Willow Garage.