Communications of the ACM
Nist Contests in China Put Next-Gen Robot Technologies to the Test
A photomicrograph showing the microrobot built by the University of Hawaii (circular object in top center) along with a series of glass beads that it assembled into a mini "U H." The 200 micrometer scale bar in the upper right corner is about the length o
Credit: Ohta/University of Hawaii at Manoa
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology recently hosted three of the four robotics competitions at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Shanghai.
The contests are designed to demonstrate the viability of advanced robotics and microrobotics technologies. A Drexel University team won the mixed palletizing contest while a Hood College team won the truck loading contest.
The Mobile Microrobotics Challenge involved seven teams from Canada, Europe, and the United States competing in events involving building multiple microscale components in a narrow channel to simulate operation within a blood vessel by future medical microbots and assembly-based micromanufacturing.
The French team won the maze challenge and the University of Waterloo team won the microassembly event. The Solutions in Perception Challenge involved the assessment of teams on how well their sensing software recognized and ascertained the positions of 35 common household items and 15 manufacturing elements. Strong perception is a central skill for next-generation robots to operate successfully in both crowded and uncrowded surroundings.
From NIST News
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