2012 Virtual Manufacturing Automation Competition

Tue, 11/22/2011 - 07:41 — admin

The competition is in conjunction with IEEE ICRA

New:

Teams are sought to participate in the 2012 Virtual Manufacturing Automation Challenge (VMAC) to be held in conjunction with the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

This will be the fourth year of this simulation-based challenge which is designed to stimulate research in robotics dealing with problems related to mixed-palletizing and intra-factory package delivery and logistics.

Video shows ICRA 2010 runs and working on a real KUKA robot cell.

Video shows a multi-robot simulation environment for mixed palletizing.

VMAC Mobility Competition.

Challenge Activities and Events

This year's activities will include two challenges and a workshop. Each challenge will have multiple events and teams can participate in one or more events.

Mixed Palletizing Challenge. This challenge is designed to explore algorithms and techniques to address the three dimensional cutting stock problem, a variant of the combinatorial non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard) knapsack problem. Teams will create and evaluate pallet optimal packing plans using XML schemas, a Pallet Viewer application and the USARSim simulation framework.

Mobility & Task Completion Challenge. The events of this challenge are designed to address the need for one or more factory robots to operate in unstructured environments amongst dynamic obstacles. Teams will use the USARSim simulation framework to deliver completed pallets throughout a simulated warehouse environment.

Tutorials & Presentations Workshop. Participants will be given the opportunity to present their solutions and approaches in a one-day workshop. The workshop will also include tutorials, hands-on exercises and presentations from industry and government leaders in the growing area of robotics and manufacturing automation.

Teams

Teams of one or more researchers, students and faculty may participate in the competition. Teams have the option to be physically present for the challenge events or, participate remotely from their home institution.

New and multi-disciplinary teams that foster collaboration and include researchers from other disciplines (ex. operations research, systems engineering, applied mathematics) are especially encouraged to participate.

What's next ?

Interested participants should submit a brief team description, affiliation and the challenge events your team intends to participate in to roboSim@nist.gov by January 1, 2012.

If you have any questions, send your e-mails to roboSim@nist.gov

Timeline

  • January 1: Intent to participate
  • February 15: Team paper (~1 page description of team and overall strategy)
  • March 15: Final confirmation of participation to enable scheduling of event
  • April 15 Submission of 6 page paper describing team strategy and results
  • May 14-18: Competition during ICRA'12 at St. Paul Minnesota

Links

Organizing Committee

  • Dr. George Dimitoglou, Hood College, Frederick MD
  • Dr. Henrik Christensen, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
  • Dr. Stephen Balakirsky, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD