Holding robot development contest where Amazon can work instead of human, who would win the prize of 3 million yen?

Amazon is a robot system development contest with a winning prize of 26,000 dollars (about 3 million yen)"Amazon Picking Challenge" heldAlthough it was, on May 28, 2015, a glorious winner was decided.

Amazon Picking Challenge
http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/

Amazon crowns winner of first warehouse robot challenge
http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/01/amazon-picking-challenge-winner/

Amazon is Looking for the Perfect Warehouse Worker - Bloomberg Business
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-28/robot-with-a-human-grasp-is-amazon-s-challenge-to-students

Amazon, which promotes automation of huge warehouses, is in the process of reducing labor costs by introducing 15,000 robots. Meanwhile, in January 2015, Amazon held a robot contest of 3 million yen in winning prize for the purpose of "encouraging the development of a system that combines software that can work more efficiently (robot) · software" did.

Amazon holds "Amazon Picking Challenge" robot system development contest with winning prize of 3 million yen


I won the contest this timeTeam RBOThe team of Berlin Institute of Technology called. I won an overwhelming championship with 60 points behind the 2nd team.


The content of the competition is to pick up the desired item from the shelf where the prizes are lined up. Team RBOLIDARUsing the laser and three robotic arms with three fingers, we succeeded in picking up specially designated items from the shelf where the oreo boxes, rubber ducks, dog toys etc are arranged.

The way the Team RBO's robot picks up the goods can be confirmed from the following movie.

Amazon Picking Challenge 2015 - Team RBO (speed x 4) - YouTube


Team RBO 's robot standing in front of the shelf.


Extend the robot arm and thrust into the shelf.


Slurp and take out rubber ducks ......


Put it in a red box.


Then I took out ... ...


Oreo's pack. It is quite different in size and shape from rubber ducks, but it has been successfully picked up.


It was safe to move to the red box safely.


The Team RBO's robot has multiple sensors, and it searches for a position that can be held steady after recognizing the item. Then use the vacuum to suck the desired item to the arm, hold it firmly at a strength not to squeeze it, and move it to another place. According to the members of the team "The object recognition algorithm got kimo."

Team RBO succeeded in moving 10 items out of 12 items within 20 minutes and won the top score with 148 points. The second placeTeam MITI also used a robotic arm with a suction function, but he seems to have taken items using a thing like a flat dish instead of three fingers. The overall score of Team MIT was 88 points.

Since the above-mentioned movie is being played at quadruple speed, the movement of the robot looks faster, but the movement of the actual robot is very slow, the point of the speed still has room for improvement. Attempts by Amazon to develop efficient robots have just begun, and it is expected that there will be further evolution in the future.

Amazon Picking Challenge - Team RBO - YouTube