A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue Austrian RoboCup Workshop 2007
Motivation Rescue Robot League
RRFreiburg: Behavior Maps Rescue Simulation League
Virtual Competition RRFreiburg: RFID Technology-based Exploration
Agent Competition
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 2
MotivationThe time problem after an incident
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 3
MotivationWhere is the benefit from robotics technology?
After a disaster many places are unreachable for humans
Robots can access places humans can’t (e.g. small holes or spaces under the floor)
Robots can send video and thermo images from hazardous places
Destroyed infrastructure: Problem of self-localization
Quality of disaster response strongly depends on information, such as maps with victim locations
Tom Haus (firemen at 9/11): “We need a tracking system that tells us where we are, where we have been, and where we have to go to”
Technology from Robotics can be deployed for information gathering and world modeling
Autonomous systems: Reduction of “cognitive load”
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 4
Rescue Robot LeagueResearch Challenges
High degree of mobility Simultaneous Localization
And Mapping (SLAM)
Victim detection
Autonomy!Autonomy!
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 5
Rescue Robot LeagueBuild robots that are ready to leave the lab!
You might be too small … … or you might be too big
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 6
Rescue Robot LeagueGoals and directions
Cooperative development with simulation league Step-wise increase of difficulty (e.g. like golf
courses) Building of standards for mapping and data
exchange between heterogeneous units Towards “mixed-initiative” solutions, i.e. humans
and robots build one team for efficient disaster response
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 7
Competition settingThree types of arenas
YELLOW ARENARANDOM MAZEPITCH & ROLL RAMP FLOORING (10°) DIRECTIONAL VICTIM BOXES (FOR AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS)
ORANGE ARENAPITCH & ROLL RAMP FLOORING (10°, 15°)
HALF CUBIC STEPFIELDSCONFINED SPACES (UNDER ELEVATED FLOORS)
VICTIM BOXES WITH HOLES
RED ARENAFULL CUBIC STEPFIELDS
STAIRS (40°, 20CM RISERS)RAMP (45° WITH CARPET)
PIPE STEPS (20CM)DIRECTIONAL VICTIM BOXES
REGIONAL/PRELIMINARY ARENAS SHOWN, CHAMPIONSHIP ARENAS WILL BE TWICE THIS SIZE
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 8
Competition settingSimulated victims
Signs of life: form,
motion, heat,
sound, CO2
THERMAL IMAGE
VISUAL IMAGE
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 9
Competition settingRules at a glance
GeoTIFF map formats will be used to allow comparison of maps to ground truth arena configurations.
Best-In-Class awards for autonomy and mobility will be given to robots that find the most victims in the Yellow and Red arenas respectively over all missions.
Random mazes with non-flat flooring Stepfield pallets (Orange: half-cubic, Red: full-cubic) Stairs (40°, 20cm riser, 25cm tread depth) Ramp (45° to test torque and center of gravity) Confined spaces (ceiling blocks under elevated floors) Visual acuity (tumbling E eye charts, hazmat labels) Directed perception boxes with victims/targets inside Simulated Victims: 4 per arena, 12 total Signs of life: form, heat, motion, sound, and/or CO2
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 10
Competition settingRules at a glance II (Missions)
15/20/25 minute missions include robot placement at the start point and operator station setup. Each team is responsible for making sure victims are functional (heat, batteries, tags) prior to their mission start.
Teams are allowed one operator during missions. Start points will be in the Yellow arena with all robots facing the same direction
(“north” on your map). Yellow arena victims can be scored only by robots with autonomous navigation
and victim identification. Operators may take over control at any time to move into the Orange and Red arenas but must return to the start point to resume autonomous searches.
Teleoperative robots can only score Orange or Red arena victims, which are placed on both sides of the Yellow arena to encourage complete mapping.
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 11
Teams at GermanOpen 2007
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 12
Behavior MapsElevation mapping and classification of rough terrain
Basic idea: 1) Robot with tilted Laser
scanner and IMU sensor explores rough terrain.
2) Generation of elevation map, and classification with Markov Random Fields (MRFs)
3) Detection of skill pre-conditions, e.g. starting position and angle
4) Planning and execution of skills
Lurker robot
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RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 13
Rough terrain Elevation Map
Classified Map Behavior Map
Behavior Maps cont.Elevation mapping and classification of rough terrain
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RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 14
Behavior Maps cont.Elevation mapping and classification of rough terrain
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Rescue Roboticsand the RoboCup Rescue Challenge
MotivationRescue Robot League
RRFreiburg: Behavior MapsRescue Simulation League
Virtual CompetitionRRFreiburg: RFID Technology-based Exploration
Agent Competition
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 16
Rescue Virtual CompetitionUSARSim
Based on the Unreal game engine (UT2004, Epic Games)
Realistic models of USAR environments, robots (Pioneer2 DX, Sony AIBO), and sensors (Laser Range Finder, Color Camera, IMU, Wheel Odometry)
Multiple heterogeneous agents can be placed in the simulation environment
High fidelity simulation of up to 12 robots
Agents connect via a TCP/IP interface NEW: Communication Server
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 17
Rescue Virtual CompetitionIntroduction cont.
Unreal Client
Unreal Server
Command
Sensor data
Sonar Sensor message
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 18
Rescue Virtual CompetitionPerformance Metrics
Victim discovery Victims are detected by a simplified sensor retuning ID/state depending on
distance Victim ID (10pt), Victim status (20pt), victim location (10pt), additional information
(20pt) Self Localization and Mapping (SLAM)
Metric quality (50pt): How close are reported locations to ground truth? Multi-robot fusion: Bonus for maps generated by multiple robots
Exploration Max. 50pt if exploring the whole area NEW: Explored areas have to be marked as “cleared”
Penalization Robot-Victim collision (-5pt) Teleoperation: Division of total score by (1+N)2
NEW: One mandatory operator for each team
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 19
Rescue Virtual CompetitionMore new features
Improved robot models for
realistic mobility
GeoTIFF format for maps Maps will be overlaid on and compared
to ground truth Teams must specify areas “cleared”
Points deducted for victims in “cleared” areas
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 20
Rescue Virtual Competition RRFreiburg solution at RoboCup’06
Basic Idea: RFID Technology-based Exploration Robots generate local grid maps, generated from Laser Range data A* based planning on local grid Each robot distributes autonomously RFID tags and counts locally in the
memory of tags the relative locations already visited If in perception range, robots receive the data of tags and optimize their
search by avoiding frequently visited places Extension: Global planner that resets the local search if beneficial
Cheap computation on each robot due to a local world model Locations are stored relatively to the tag, hence do not suffer under
positioning errors Efficient coordination without need for communication
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RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 21
Rescue Virtual CompetitionResults from RoboCup’06 cont.
Area explored by all teams during the finals
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 22
Rescue Virtual CompetitionResults from RoboCup’06: Exploration Trajectories
Area explored by our team (red trajectory) compared to all others
Area explored by each single robot of our team
Semi-final (1276m2)
Final (1203m2)
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 23
Rescue Virtual CompetitionVideo from the final
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Rescue Roboticsand the RoboCup Rescue Challenge
MotivationRescue Robot League
RRFreiburg: Behavior MapsRescue Simulation League
Virtual CompetitionRRFreiburg: RFID Technology-based Exploration
Agent Competition
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 25
Rescue Agent Competition Introduction
Large scale disaster simulation Simulators for earthquake, fire, civilians,
and traffic The task is to develop software agents
with different roles, that make roads passable (police) extinguish the fires (fire brigades) rescue all civilians (ambulances)
Difference to Soccer Simulation: A challenging Multi-Agent Problem since Agents must cooperate
Simulator components are developed within the “Infrastructure Competition”
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 26
Conclusion RoboCup Rescue offers a rich set of problems to AI and Robotics Due to the difficulty for robots to cooperate in harsh environments,
research is just at the beginning Developed solutions are socially significant!
Links: Rescue Robot League:
Homepage: http://robotarenas.nist.gov/competitions.htm Rescue Simulation League:
Homepage: http://www.robocuprescue.org USARSim (code base): http://sourceforge.net/projects/usarsim Rescue Agent (code base): http://sourceforge.net/projects/roborescue
A. Kleiner, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
RoboCup Rescue - Austrian RoboCup Workshop 27
Thanks for your attention!