The Tower of Hanoi for Robotics

A contest in mobile manipulation for undergraduate and graduate robotics students

London Science Museum, London, UK. Dec. 2, 2011.

In association with the 1st European Robotics Week and the EU Robots Festival

Objective

Today, robotics counts as a promising technology that may help relieve some of the most dramatic problems human-kind is facing. Mobile manipulation is a key technology for a new kind of robots serving people in their daily lives. This contest has the purpose of introducing undergraduate and graduate students to the challenging problems brought forth by this technology.

Task

The Tower of Hanoi is a problem that has been known to generations of computer science students. It allows studying and learning the concept of recursion in algorithm design. The task is to move a pile of disks with the smallest number of moves from one location to another while obeying certain rules. The Tower of Hanoi problem is not only of interest to computer scientists. It is also an important problem for robotics research and education. The fundamental difference is that we are not dealing with a virtual world, but with the real world.

As a matter of fact the Tower of Hanoi problem is an excellent scenario to study some of the most demanding scientific challenges in robotics today. Solving the Tower of Hanoi problem – if done efficiently and fast - requires the seamless integration of perception including object recognition, scene understanding and situation awareness, world modeling (in 3D), task planning (for mobile manipulation), motion planning (for mobile manipulation), coordination and control including navigation. The Tower of Hanoi problem is a great opportunity for research and education in mobile manipulation and it yields an adequate setting for a robot contest for students and their teachers interested in mobile manipulation.

Date and venue

Dec. 2, 2011, London Science Museum, London, UK

Prizes and grants

All teams that manage to get into the semifinal will receive a travel grant of 1.000 EUR each. Travel cost going beyond this grant will have to be covered by the teams themselves. In addition the best three teams will receive a monetary prize. Prizes for finalists will be announced soon.

Who can participate?

Teams of robotics students, undergraduates as well as graduates, from all over Europe that are interested in mobile manipulation are welcome to participate in the challenge. Professors are asked to motivate and tutor their students to join the challenge - an excellent opportunity to meet and compete with young researchers from all over Europe.

Patronage of the event

The event takes place under the auspices of the

European Commission

Directorate E: Digital Content and Cognitive Systems Unit E.5: Cognitive Systems, Interaction, Robotics

Organizers

euRobotics Coordination Action (http://eurobotics-project.eu/)

Participation and Registration

Participation in the contest will be free. Registration is required. To register for the event, please, send an email to the event secretariat

*Deadline for registration*: 15. October 2011.

Event Secretariat

Locomotec

Nobelstraße 15