For more than 20 years,
DTU Electrical Engineering has held DTU RoboCup to focus on the development of robots. This year, the focus is on intelligence and reliability.
On 5 April, 15 autonomous robots competed on being the fastest to complete DTU RoboCup 2018. They all had to follow an established course while meeting a number of challenges along the way—including negotiating a staircase, a seesaw, holing a golf ball, playing tick-tack-toe, and—not least—racing against the other robots.
The winner of this year’s final was 16-year-old August Borg Ljørring with the robot ‘August’. August Borg Ljørring also won the DTU RoboCup final in 2016 and clinched an impressive second place in the competition in 2017.
Second prize went to DTU students Lars Vestergaard Jensen and Daniel Blankenstejner Jakobsen, with the robot ‘Team JASMIN’.
Third prize was won by Asger Ren Nordbjerg with the robot ‘Hald 9000’.
Extra prizes
Team JASMIN also won the prize for best-placed DTU vehicle. As the best fighter, the judges chose DTU students Alejandro García-Vaquero and Pau López with the robot ‘Run Sally run’. Last—but not least—the special prize for design and effects went to Jacob Sparre Andersen, Allan Ascanius, and Per Dalgas Jakobsen with the robot ‘Roadrunner’.
This year, DTU RoboCup focused on robot intelligence.
“The development in the requirements for the participants reflects the technological development of robots seen in the past twenty years. This year, we have made the requirements more stringent with obstacles that make demands on the participating robots’ intelligence. This means that the robots must be able to both read and then adapt to the changes that occur in their surroundings. For example, to give way to another driving robot on the track,” explains Ole Ravn, who is in charge of holding DTU RoboCup.
The DTU RoboCup participants are primary school pupils, students, and adults. The competition is entertaining, but it also reflects the research into the robots of tomorrow conducted at DTU. In this connection, Ole Ravn emphasizes robot intelligence and reliability as two major development areas which—in the long term—will result in much more extensive use of robots than today. Especially reliability has become a high-priority research area in the wake of the recent accident in which a pedestrian was killed by a self-driving Uber car.