RoboCup 2017 Virtual Robot Competition - Final Call for Participation

[Francesco Amigoni]

(Please apologize for multiple postings.)

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Call for Participation

        RoboCup 2017 Virtual Robot Competition

       July 25 - July 31, 2017 (Nagoya, Japan)
          http://www.robocup2017.org/

=== The deadline for sending the intention of participation is February 15, 2017 ===

We would like to invite all robot rescue teams to participate in the 2017 RoboCup Rescue Simulation League World Championship.

The Virtual Robot Competition has been largely renewed last year, both in terms of simulation environment, with the transition from the an Unreal-based environment to a ROS/Gazebo based environment, and in terms of challenges and rules.

If you are interested to participate please take the time to pre-register your team for the RoboCup 2017 Virtual Robot Competition as soon as possible, so that we can inform you about the latest developments.

(1) RoboCup Rescue Simulation League and Virtual Robot Competition
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The RoboCup Rescue Simulation League is a socially relevant part of RoboCup event. Its main purpose is to provide emergency decision support by integration of disaster information, prediction, planning, and human interface.

A generic urban disaster simulation environment is constructed on network computers. Heterogeneous intelligent agents such as fire fighters, commanders, victims, volunteers, etc. conduct search and rescue activities in this virtual disaster world. Agents can sense their environment and make decisions on the basis of the perceived data. Mission-critical human interfaces support disaster managers, disaster relief brigades, residents, and volunteers to decide their actions to minimize the disaster damage.

Addressing this problem involves advanced and interdisciplinary research themes. As AI/robotics research, for example, behavior strategy (e.g., multi-agent planning, realtime/anytime planning, heterogeneity of agents, robust planning, mixed-initiative planning) is a challenging problem. For disaster researchers, RoboCup Rescue works as a standard basis in order to develop practical comprehensive simulators adding necessary disaster modules.

>From last year, the Virtual Robot Competition is based on ROS/Gazebo, an advanced robot simulator in which users can simulate multiple agents whose capabilities closely mirror those of real robots. ROS/Gazebo currently features several ground and air robots, as well as a wide range of sensors and actuators. Moreover, exploiting ROS, users can easily develop their robot systems integrating standard modules. 

For more information:
- RoboCup Rescue Simulation League: http://wiki.robocup.org/Rescue_Simulation_League
- Tutorials and links to repositories for the simulation environment: https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/a.visser/activities/FutureOfRescue/
- A demo: https://github.com/m-shimizu/RoboCup2016RVRL_Demo
- Simulated worlds from previous competitions: https://github.com/m-shimizu/RoboCup2016RVRL_FieldModels
- Document describing the transition to the new simulator:
http://robocup.oss-cn-beijing.aliyuncs.com/symposium%2FRoboCup_Symposium_2015_submission_14.pdf

(2) Intention of participation
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If you are interested to participate in the competition, please send, before February 15, 2017, an email to francesco.amigoni at polimi.it with as attachment the following form filled in:
http://home.deib.polimi.it/amigoni/research/IntentVirtual2017.txt

(3) Qualification material
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Besides sending the intention of participation, please prepare before March 30, 2017, a Team Description Paper describing the most innovative contributions or scientific results your team is intended to provide.
The TDP is limited to 8 pages and must be formatted according to the LNCS format: 
http://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines

The Team Description Paper is an overview of the methodologies you use or intend to use to control your robots inside the Virtual Robot Competition. If applicable, include a reference to your latest publications.
The qualification material should be placed on a dedicated web page on the team's home page. 
Please include the link to the qualification material on the intention of participation information.

(4) Deadlines
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- Deadline for intention of participation to Virtual Robot Competition: February 15, 2017
- Deadline for qualification material Virtual Robot Competition: March 30, 2017
- Team qualification notification: April 10, 2017
- Early registration period: March 28 - May 31, 2017

(5) Rules
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The rules for the RoboCup 2017 Virtual Robot Competition will be published in due time at:
http://wiki.robocup.org/Rescue_Simulation_League#Rules
With respect to rules adopted in 2016, we expect to list allowed sensors and platforms and, possibly, to include a ROS node for realistically simulating communication between robots.


We hope to see you all in Japan!

With kind regards,
Sanaz Taleghani, Fatemeh Pahlevan Agahababa, Masaru Shimizu, and Francesco Amigoni 
(members of the 2017 RoboCup Rescue Simulation Virtual Robot Competition Technical and Organization Committees) 


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Francesco Amigoni, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory
Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria
Politecnico di Milano
Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32
I-20133 Milano (MI), Italy

Voice: +39 02 2399-3475
Fax: +39 02 2399-3411
Email: francesco.amigoni at polimi.it
Web: http://www.deib.polimi.it/people/amigoni
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