Our team NimbRo participated in the second
Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), which took place February 23th-25th 2020 in the Abu Dhabi National
Exhibition Centre.
Tasks included cachting a moving ball with a micro aerial vehicle,
building a wall with ground and aerial vehicles, and extinguishing
fires.
Our robots came in second in Challenge 2, where walls should be
assembled by micro aerial vehicles and a ground vehicle.
We also came in second in the Grand Challenge, where all challenge
tasks had to be performed simultanously.
Marius Beul, Max Schwarz, Jan Quenzel, Malte Splietker, Simon
Bultmann, Daniel Schleich, Andre Rochow, Dmytro Pavlichenko, Radu
Alexandru Rosu, Patrick Lowin, Bruno Scheider, Michael Schreiber, Finn
Süberkrüb, and Sven Behnke:
Target Chase, Wall Building, and Fire Fighting: Autonomous UAVs of
Team NimbRo at MBZIRC 2020
Accepted for Field Robotics, to appear 2022.
Christian Lenz, Jan Quenzel, Arul Selvam Periyasamy, Jan Razlaw, Andre
Rochow, Malte Splietker, Michael Schreiber, Max Schwarz, Finn
Süberkrüb, and Sven Behnke:
Autonomous Wall-building and Firefighting: Team NimbRo’s
UGV Solution for MBZIRC 2020
Field Robotics, vol. 2, pp. 55-74, March 2022.
Jan Quenzel, Malte Splietker, Dmytro Pavlichenko, Daniel Schleich,
Christian Lenz, Max Schwarz, Michael Schreiber, Marius Beul, and Sven
Behnke:
Autonomous Fire Fighting with a UAV-UGV team at MBZIRC 2020
In Proceedings of International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft
Systems (ICUAS), Athens, Greece, June 2021.
[Videos]
Christian Lenz, Max Schwarz, Andre Rochow, Jan Razlaw, Arul Selvam
Periyasamy, Michael Schreiber, and Sven Behnke:
Autonomous Wall Building with a UGV-UAV Team at MBZIRC 2020
In Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security,
and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), Abu Dhabi, UAE, November 2020.
[Videos]
Marius Beul, Simon Bultmann, Andre Rochow, Radu Alexandru Rosu, Daniel
Schleich, Malte Splietker, and Sven Behnke:
Visually Guided Balloon Popping with an Autonomous MAV at MBZIRC
2020
In Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security,
and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), Abu Dhabi, UAE, November 2020.
Best Paper Award.
[Videos]
Our team NimbRo won the Grand Challenge in the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), which was organized by Khalifa University and took place on March 16–18, 2017 at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.
For Challenge 1, we equipped a small MAV with cameras and onboard
computing to find a moving vehicle and to land quickly on it.
For Challenge 2, we developed a mobile manipulation robot, equipped
with laser scanner and cameras to quickly find and approach a panel,
recognize and grasp the needed wrench, and turn a valve stem with it.
For Challenge 3, we equipped MAVs with color camera and magnetic
gripper to collect colored objects and to transport them to a drop
box.
In Challenge 4, the robots performed all tasks simultaneously.
23.7.2018
Our article Marius Beul, Matthias Nieuwenhuisen, Jan Quenzel, Radu
Alexandru Rosu, Jannis Horn, Dmytro Pavlichenko, Sebastian Houben, and
Sven Behnke:
Team NimbRo at MBZIRC 2017: Fast Landing on a Moving Target and
Treasure Hunting with a Team of
Micro Aerial Vehicles
has been accepted for the Journal of Field Robotics (JFR)
36(1):204-229, Wiley, January 2019.
[Video]
12.7.2018
Our article Max Schwarz, David Droeschel, Christian Lenz, Arul Selvam
Periyasamy, En Yen Puang, Jan Razlaw, Diego Rodriguez, Sebastian
Sch�ller, Michael Schreiber, and Sven Behnke:
Team NimbRo at MBZIRC 2017: Autonomous Valve Stem Turning using a
Wrench
has been accepted for the Journal of Field Robotics (JFR)
36(1):170-182, Wiley, January 2018.
29.6.2017
Two papers on the Challenges 1 and 3 have been accepted for ECMR:
Marius Beul, Sebastian Houben, Matthias Nieuwenhuisen, and Sven
Behnke:
Fast Autonomous Landing on a Moving Target at MBZIRC
In Proceedings of European Conference on Mobile Robotics (ECMR),
Paris, France, September 2017.
[Video]
Matthias Nieuwenhuisen, Marius Beul, Radu Alexandru Rosu, Jan Quenzel,
Dmytro Pavlichenko, Sebastian Houben, and Sven Behnke:
Collaborative Object Picking and Delivery with a Team of Micro
Aerial Vehicles at MBZIRC
In Proceedings of European Conference on Mobile Robotics (ECMR),
Paris, France, September 2017.
[Video]
19.3.2017
In a workshop at Khalifa University, we presented our approach to the
MBZIRC tasks:
*
MBZIRC_Challenge_2_Winner_NimbRo.pdf
*
MBZIRC_Grand_Challenge_Winner_NimbRo.pdf
18.3.2017
In the Grand Challenge final, our robots demonstrated all three
challenge tasks simultaneously in the same arena. Our ground robot
quickly approached the panel and grasped the correct wrench, while the
landing MAV detected the moving landing platform and landed smoothly
in under one minute. In the next seconds, the ground robot sucessfully
inserted the wrench onto the valve stem and completed the Challenge 2
task by turning it 360�. The remaining challenge time was used to
pick up objects and deliver team to a drop zone. Two picking MAVs
performed this Challenge 3 task.
Our Challenge 2 performance was by far the fastest of all teams (1
minute 23 seconds), Challenge 1 (landing) was the second fastest (42
seconds), and the 10,5 points for the collected objects in
Challenge 3 were the second highest. Overall, this resulted in a mean
rank of 1.7 for NimbRo, clearly better than ETH Zurich - Electronic
Treasure Hunters (mean rank 3.0) and Czech Technical University in
Prague, University of Pennsylvania, University of Lincoln, University
of Padua (mean rank 3.3).
The price money for winning the MBZIRC Grand Challenge was US$ 1
Million. In addition, our team also won Challenge 2 (price money US$
350.000) and came in third in Challenges 1 and 3.
17.3.2017
In our first Challenge 3 run, a MAV autonomously picked up an object
from a moving base and delivered it to a drop box. A second object was
also picked, but not delivered.
In the second Challenge 1 run, we could not improve our score.
In the second Challenge 2 run, our robot solved the task of
approaching a panel, grasping a wrench, and turning a valve stem in
only one minute and 24 seconds. That was perfect!
16.3.2017
Today was the first of three competition days.
In the first Challenge 2 run, our team needed two resets, but then the
robot solved the task of approaching the panel, grasping the wrench,
and turning the valve stem quickly.
In the first Challenge 1 run, the MAV needed one restart, but then
quickly detected the moving vehicle and landed smoothly on it.
Our slot for Challenge 3 was postponed due to too strong winds.
15.3.2017
We used the second rehearsal day to test autonomous picking up and dropping of objects (Challenge 3) and autonomous approach of the landing pattern (Challenge 1). In Challenge 2, we optimized performing the task of approaching the panel, grasping the wrench, and turning the valve stem autonomously.
14.3.2017
At the first rehearsal day, our ground robot approached for the first time the official panel. The panel looked slightly different from expected but the robot still managed to turn the valve stem with the wrench. Our MAV team could test for the first time with the objects to be transported in the arena. The small objects were heavier than expected, but the MAV gripper worked well.
13.3.2017
Our team and the robots were for the first time allowed to enter the arena. The robots were checked for rules compliance and the field network was tested. We performed intitial driving tests with the ground robot and first flight tests with the MAVs.
12.3.2017
Our team arrived at the MBZIRC venue – Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi – and started robot asssembly.
