Virtual Robots RoboCupRescue Competition: Contributions to Infrastructure and Science

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Virtual Robots RoboCupRescue Competition

Contributions to Infrastructure and Science
Michael Lewis School of Information Sciences University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA Stefano Carpin School of Engineering University of California, Merced Merced, CA Stephen Balakirsky Intelligent Systems National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD
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USAR Challenge
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Rapid Advancement in USAR2001-present
Simulation League communication models to
cooperation learning Kitano and Tadokoro,
2001 H. Kitano and S. Tadokoro, Robocup rescue
A grand challenge for multiagent and intelligent
systems. AI Magazine, 22(1)3952, 2001.
Robot Rescue League video driven teleoperation
to 3D scanning autonomous exploration Jacoff
et al., 2001 A. Jacoff, E. Messina, J. Evans,
Experiences in deploying test arenas for
autonomous mobile robots, Proceedings of the 2001
Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems
(PerMIS) Workshop, Mexico City, Mexico, 2001.
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Our first team
Pioneer
Tarantula
PERs
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2004 USAR winners in Lisbon
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Mobility comes to dominate Rescue Robot
competition by 2005
INSERT VIDEO HERE
RAPTOR, CARNEGIE MELLON and UNIV. OF PITTSBURGH,
USA
RED ARENA with Random Step Fields and other
difficult mobility Obstacles is for very agile
robots, all control modes are allowed.
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Virtual Robots as a Bridge

• VR ? Physical League
• Continually improving simulation quality and
  validation
• VR? Simulation League
• Expanding team size problem complexity

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USARsim Architecture Simulation Desiderata

• Expense and availability of simulation hardware
  and software to USAR robotics community
• Ease of programming to reflect targeted aspects
  of design
• Fidelity of simulation w.r.t. aspects of design
  to be tested

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USARsim Architecture Simulation Requirements

• Video feed for teleoperation and visual search
  and identification
• Sensor simulation- for autonomous control and
  fused displays
• Simulated robot dynamics- for teleoperation and
  autonomous control
• Multiple entity simulation- to allow interaction
  and cooperation among teams of robots

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USARsim Architecture
The image server captures images from video
memory so they can be subjected to visual
processing just like input from a real camera.
COTS game engine supplies best available graphics
physics engines Standard tools like 3D studio
max or Maya are available
Robots are controlled and sensor data gathered
from sockets into the game
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Brief history 2003

• Developed USARsim simulation
• Limited to our own robots
• Limited to our own (RETSINA) control architecture
• Demod
• USAR workshop at USF
• US Open RoboCup

2003
2002
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Brief history 2004

• Extended simulator for general access added
  features such as sensor models image server
  needed for research
• Modeled robots commonly used robots
• Made control architecture agnostic
• Added plug-in/API for popular
• middleware
• Player/(Stage)
• Pyro
• Presented to USAR participants at
• Robocup 2004 in Lisbon

2002
2003
2004
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Brief history 2005
Demo approved at Robocup Rescue Camp in
Rome Rule robots must model real robots being
used by team in USAR 6 teams from 4 countries
participated in demo competition at Robocup in
Osaka University of Rome, International
University of Bremen, University of Osnabruck,
University of Freiburg, Meijo University,
University of Pittsburgh Virtual Robots USAR
competition approved to become new competition
within RobocupRescue League start for RoboCup
2006 in Bremen June 14-20 USARSim moved to Source
Forge
2003
2002
2005
2004
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USARSim Aibo model presented by Marco Zaratti at
2005 RoboCup Symposium
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Brief history 2006
USARSim Units regularlized by NIST Mission
Package designed to accommodate extensions to
simulation First RoboCup Rescue VR competition
held in Bremen 8 teams from 6 countries 1st
Freiburg, 2nd I U Bremen, 3rd Amsterdam
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
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2006 Competition World
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Brief history 2007
Operator penalty repealed (as in RR league)
Communications server added Second RoboCup
Rescue VR competition held in Atlanta 8 teams
from 5 countries 1st Pitt/CMU, 2nd Jacobs, 3rd
Rome Continuing work in validation and new
platforms
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
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Brief history 2008
Third RoboCup Rescue VR competition held in
Sizhou, China 10 teams from 8 countries UAVs
added 1st SEU, 2nd UC Merced, 3rd CMU/Pitt German
Open 3 teams, Iranian Open 4 teams
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
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Brief history 2009
Fourth RoboCup Rescue VR competition held in
Graz, Austria 11 teams from 8 countries 1st UC
Merced, 2nd SEU, 3rd Amsterdam-Oxford German Open
3 teams, Iranian Open 4 teams Continuing work in
validation and new platforms
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
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USARSim Sensors
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USARSim Robots
Joint efforts
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11 USARSim Validation Studies

• Synthetic video
• Carpin, S., Stoyanov, T., Nevatia, Y., Lewis, M.
  and Wang, J. (2006a). Quantitative assessments of
  USARSim accuracy". Proceedings of PerMIS 2006
• Hokuyo laser range finder
• Carpin, S., Wang, J., Lewis, M., Birk, A., and
  Jacoff, A. (2005). High fidelity tools for rescue
  robotics Results and perspectives, Robocup 2005
  Symposium.
• Platform physics behavior
• Sven Albrecht, Joachim Hertzberg, Kai Lingemann,
  Andreas Nuchter, Jochen Sprickerhof, Stefan
  Stiene (2006). Device Level Simulation of Kurt3D
  Rescue Robots, Third International Workshop
  on Synthetic Simulation and Robotics to Mitigate
  Earthquake Disaster, 2006.
• Carpin, S., Lewis, M., Wang, J., Balakirsky, S.
  and Scrapper, C. (2006b). Bridging the gap
  between simulation and reality in urban search
  and rescue. Robocup 2006 Robot Soccer World
  Cup X, Springer, Lecture Notes in Artificial
  Intelligence
• Nicola Greggio, Gianluca Silvestri, Emanuele
  Menegatti, Enrico Pagello (2007). A realistic
  simulation of a humanoid robot in USARSim,
  Proceeding of the 4th International Symposium on
  Mechatronics and its Applications (ISMA07) , 2007
• S. Okamoto, A. Jacoff, S. Balakirsky, and S.
  Tadokoro (2007). Qualitative validation of a
  serpentine robot in USARSim Proceedings of the
  2007 JSME Conference on Robotics and
  Mechatronics, 2007.
• Okamoto, S.   Kurose, K.   Saga, S.   Ohno, K.  
  Tadokoro, S.   Validation of Simulated Robots
  with Realistically Modeled Dimensions and Mass in
  USARSim, IEEE International Workshop on Safety,
  Security and Rescue Robotics, 2008. (SSRR 2008),
  77-82, 2008.
• Lewis, M., Hughes, S., Wang, J., Koes, M. and
  Carpin, S., Validating USARsim for use in HRI
  research, Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting
  of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society,
  Orlando, FL, 457-461, 2005.
• Pepper, C., Balakirsky, S. and Scrapper, C.,
  Robot Simulation Physics Validation, Proceedings
  of PerMIS07, 2007.
• Taylor, B., Balakirsky, S., Messina, E. and
  Quinn, R., Design and Validation of a Whegs Robot
  in USARSim, Proceedings of PerMIS07.
• Zaratti, M., Fratarcangeli, M., and Iocchi, L., A
  3D Simulator of Multiple Legged Robots based on
  USARSim. Robocup 2006 Robot Soccer World Cup X,
  Springer, LNAI, 2006.

www.sourceforge.net/project/usarsim
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Validation simulation real P3-AT run from same
input
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USARSim Downloads
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Contributions to Scientific Infrastructure

• Competition provided critical mass of users to
  benefit from network externalities
• Association with competition provided
  justification for NIST development support
• Involving more parties led to greater
  standardization more general utility

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Reported Studies Using USARSim

• 14 Human-Robot Interaction studies-9 groups
• Dialog management 2 groups
• Machine learning- 2
• Testing control algorithms
• Driving behavior- 2 groups
• Social interaction
• Service composition for robots
• Self diagnosis

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Theses Projects
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Project Infrastructure

• Developed under NSF ITR
• Used in MURIs
• CMU
• Berkeley
• MIT
• ONR Science of Autonomy
• DARPA SyNAPSE

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Multi-Robot Mapping Evaluating Map Quality

• Direct contribution of competition
• Upcoming Special issue of Autonomous Robots
• special sessions on mapping and map quality at
  PerMIS08 and RSS08 workshops
• Other venues
• Luca Iocchi and Stefano Pellegrini (2007).
  Building 3D maps with semantic elements
  integrating 2D laser, stereo vision and IMU on a
  mobile robot, Proceedings of the 2nd ISPRS
  International Workshop on 3D-ARCH, 2007.
• Max Pfingsthorn, Bayu Slamet and
  Arnoud Visser,(2007). A Scalable Hybrid
  Multi-robot SLAM Method for Highly Detailed Maps,
  Lecture Notes in Computer Science, RoboCup 2007
  Robot Soccer World Cup XI, 385-392, 2008.
• V. Sakenas, O.  Kosuchinas, M. Pfingsthorn,  A.
  Birk,(2007).  Extraction of Semantic Floor Plans
  from 3D Point Cloud Maps, IEEE International
  Workshop on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics,
  2007. SSRR 2007, 1-6, 2007.
• D. Sun, A. Kleiner, and T. M. Wendt (2008).
  "Multi-Robot Range-Only SLAM by Active Sensor
  Nodes for Urban Search and Rescue", in In Robocup
  2008 Robot Soccer World Cup XII, 2008.
• I. Varsadan, A. Birk, and M. Pfingsthorn (2008).
  "Determining Map Quality through an Image
  Similarity Metric", Proceedings CD of the 12th
  RoboCup International Symposium, Suzhou, China.

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Elemental Tests

• Because contests reward composite performance
  they tend to promote teams with the strongest
  weakest link rather than promoting the
  strongest solutions.
• Solutions
• Sharing winning code (Agent simulation VR)
• Elemental tests as part of competition

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Competition updates 2009

• Preliminary rounds based on automatically scored
  elemental tests
• Rationale
• Identify best in class abilities
• Push teams to attack new challenges
• Move towards objectively measurable performance
  metrics

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First elemental test

• Mapping
• Reward the ability to produce a map that allows a
  first responder to reach a set of random points
  in the disaster scenario
• Ignore metric quality, but focus on topological
  utility
• Automatically scored

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Second elemental test

• Radio network deployment challenge
• Reward teams able to identify deployment points
  yielding the maximum coverage for a given
  environment
• A priori data partially wrong
• Reward planning and the ability to navigate to
  target points
• Automatically scored (score is the covered area)
• Fully autonomous challenge
• Uses a newly developed Wireless simulator taking
  into account walls, attenuation, etc..

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Third elemental test

• Teleoperation
• Reward teams able to develop an HRI where a
  single operator can drive a team of robots to a
  set of goal locations
• Automatically scored
• Very different target locations impose the use of
  heterogeneous robot teams (flying, wheeled,
  tracked)
• Semiautonomous test

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Next Challenge

• Can contest simulator survive change in
  platform?
• UE2 engine cannot support large numbers of robots
  (8) with high fidelity
• UE2 engine cannot support physics intensive
  dynamics such as tracks
• Moving to UE3 requires re-doing most of the
  infrastructure

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Performance for tracked robots
Modeling something with many constraints such as
tracks is extremely difficult. In the case of
this Tarantula, for example, simplifying tracks
to 5 wheels/flipper yields 20 x 5 4x6 124
constrained dof and is just about at the limit of
the Karma engine. This simplification of a
tracked robot is about 5 times as costly to
simulate as a 4 wheeled platform.