MBZIRC 2017

The MASCOR Institute is participating the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC)!

Milestones

Status report video:

Second status report video:

Press Releases

The organizers say many teams interested in participating MBZIRC. There are 143 applications for MBZIRC.

Learn more about our efforts in an press release on MASKOR's participation at MBZIRC (german).

Media Coverage

There is press coverage (mentioning us) of the event as well:

heise on MBZIRC starting (german)
heise on wind causing difficulties at MBZIRC (german)
heise on the first Challenge day of MBZIRC (german)
heise report on the final day of MBZIRC 2017 (german)
heise concluding MBZIRC 2017 (german)
Nachlese auf heise zu MBZIRC 2017 (german)

Videos (old Livestreams) and Scoreboard

Videos (Intro + old Livestreams)

An official video from 2015 introducing the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC).

MBZIRC 2017 Challenge Description

First Trial, Part I

Find us doing Challenge 2 from 1:26:00--1:27:28, 1:28:27--1:31:20, and 1:47:14--1:48:30.
Find us doing Challenge 1 from 4:16:53--4:26:16.

First Trial, Part II

Find us doing Challenge 3 from 17:27--22:55 and 28:39--37:43.

Second Trial, Part I

Find us doing Challenge 2 from 6:12:54--6:32:05.

Second Trial, Part II

Second Trial, Part III

Find us doing Challenge 3 from 18:33--25:15 and 32:02--37:19.
Pay special attention to 22:40--23:50

Grand Challenge

The first run of team MASCOR can be seen 2:50:27--3:25:55. See the MASCOR team performing at 6:51:45--7:23:25. The aftermath of our run can be seen from 7:23:25-- 7:25:35.

Scoreboard

You might also want to have a look at current scoreboard of the MBZIRC challenges

On-site Report

Challenge 1 (Autonomous UAV Landing on Moving Target)

At the rehearsals we had problems with interferences causing our system to fail. Due to difficult wind conditions we couldn't show our best flying performances yet.

Challenge 2 (Mobile Manipulation)

This is the most promising challenge so far: After some difficulties in our preparations we are now able to detect and approach the panel autonomously. The direct sun light is causing problems with our sensors and some other problems might be attributed to the high temperatures. There are still some tweaks we can do, so with even lesser sleep, we might be able to improve further.

Challenge 3 (Treasure Hunt)

An unexpectedly high GPS drift and strong winds complicate our UAV parts of the challenges. We are opting for teleoperation with FPV-cameras to grab at least some targets. This requires steady hands, although Obi Wan Kenobi uses to say "Flying is for Droids"! (Flying is for Droids longer version/context)

Grand Challenge (All-In-One)

Yes! We managed to land the UAV on the driving truck 5 seconds before our time ended. *phew

MASCOR

Mobile Autonomous Systems
and Cognitive Robotics