The first European Robotics League (ERL) Consumer Service Robots tournament of the 2018/19 season will take place from the 1st to the 4th of October 2018 in Madrid, Spain, during IROS 2018, one of the world top Robotics conferences. The robotics community and the general public will get a preview of the support that robots could provide to humans in the future in domestic environments. IROS 2018 conference participants and any visitors will have the possibility to watch the competitions live, as part of a set of ten robot competition events. International teams will compete to provide robotics services for home and healthcare applications, such as welcoming visitors and supporting people in their daily lives.
The eight teams that have qualified to participate in the ERL Consumer local tournament in Madrid are:
• everBot, everis-NTT data
Website: https://www.everbot.xyz
• HEARTS, Bristol Robotics Laboratory, UK
Website: https://es-la.facebook.com/HEARTSbrl
• IRI@ERL, Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial, CSIC-UPC, Barcelona, Spain
Website: http://www.iri.upc.edu
• Machinilog, Department of Computer Engineering, Bahria University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Website: https://machinilog.wixsite.com/machinilog
• Outsiders, Universidad de Leon (Spain), Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain)
Website: http://www.outsiders-erl.robotica.gsyc.es
• PUMAS, Laboratorio de Bio.Robótica, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico
Website: https://biorobotics.fi-p.unam.mx
• Robotics Lab UC3M, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Website: http://roboticslab.uc3m.es/roboticslab/
• SocRob@Home, ISR, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Website: http://socrob.isr.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/dokuwiki/doku.php
The teams and their robots will perform different ERL Consumer Task Benchmarks from a set of four available at the IROS 2018 tournament. These include:
TBM1: Getting to Know My Home
TBM2: Welcoming Visitors
TBM3: Catering for Granny Annie’s Comfort
TBM4: Visit My Home
On Thursday 4th of October, teams and visitors will have the opportunity to attend the Forum on Smart City Robot Competitions and the awards ceremony at the Madrid Municipal Conference Centre. The Forum will consist of a series of talks on the ongoing ERL activities, particularly the upcoming ERL Smart City major event, followed by a debate on the impact of robot competitions on tech transfer, research advances and student recruiting by companies.
Everyone attending IROS2018 is cordially invited to attend the competition (all day from 1-4 October) and participate in the Forum, on October 4, 16:00-19:00, at Room 4.L.7 (Restaurante).
The European Robotics League tournaments take place under the scope of the SciRoc EU-H2020 project.
This ERL Consumer Service Robots tournament is sponsored by IROS 2018 and PAL Robotics.
For more information about the IROS 2018 ERL Consumer tournament, including the competition rules, visit https://sites.google.com/site/erlsriros2018/home
To find out more about the ERL, visit www.robotics-league.eu
Watch the SciRoc Challenge promo video featuring TIAGo robot https://youtu.be/O9yHi-xXFEY
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Contact for public access
Francisco Martín Rico
IROS2018 – Local Organization Committee
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Campus de Fuenlabrada (Madrid)
Email: francisco.rico@urjc.es
Press contact
Marta Palau Franco
University of the West of England, Bristol
Bristol Robotics Laboratory
Email: info@robotics-league.eu
Social media: @erlrobotleague
Notes for editors
The European Robotics League
The European Robotics League (ERL) is the successor to the RoCKIn, euRathlon and EuRoC robotics competitions, funded by the EU and designed to foster scientific progress and innovation in cognitive systems and robotics. The ERL comprises annual competitions for Consumer, Professional and Emergency Service Robots, and a biennial robotics challenge for Smart Cities.
SciRoc
The European Robotics League is run by the SciRoc project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme under grant agreement n° 780086.
SciRoc continues to build the ERL; raising interest through public engagement, validating and disseminating new benchmarks, and accelerating development through demonstrating the performance of components and techniques against these benchmarks. Setting the competitions in a Smart City context drives development towards real societal needs. See: http://sciroc.eu
SPARC
The ERL is part of the SPARC public-private partnership set up by the European Commission and the euRobotics association to extend Europe’s leadership in civilian robotics. SPARC’s €700 million of funding from the Commission in 2014–20 is being combined with €1.4 billion of funding from European industry.