UTM KameRider Airost Won RoboCup 2023 @Home Simulation Education in France

Chiang Yong Jie

Team KameRider Airost has won the Best Performance Award in the RoboCup 2023 Bordeaux Simulation Education Challenge. Congratulations to them! After their win in the Japan Open 2023, KameRider Airost’s second-generation team has reached greater heights in the international RoboCup 2023 in Bordeaux, France, held from July 5th to 9th. The team consisted of Anas Ismail Hassan Amer Aburaya, leader and 4th-year Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Mechatronics); Mahmoud Abdelwase Mahmoud, 4th-year Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Electronic); and Marco Bono, 4th-year Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Mechatronics). The mentors were Loke Rui Kee, a 2nd-year Bachelor of Computer Science (Bioinformatics), and Mohammed Saeed Mahmood Ahmed, a 3rd-year Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Mechatronics). The advisor was Dr Jeffrey Tan Too Chuan from MyEdu AI Robotics Research Centre.

KameRider Airost Team Open Challenge Presentation by team representatives Marco and Anas

Group photo with participants and invited guests.

The RoboCup Simulation competition evaluates the ability of intelligent robots to engage in natural and friendly communication with users while performing various support tasks in daily-life environments. The competition uses the SIGVerse simulator, which allows robots to make embodied and social interactions in virtual reality environments.

This time in Bordeaux, the @Home Simulation event consisted of 2 parts: workshop and challenge. The workshop is led by Rui Kee of @Home Education Simulation to train novice teams and prepare them for the challenge.

On-site group photo in Bordeaux Exhibition Center, France

All activities occur virtually during the event, but the physical equipment is installed at the RoboCup venue – Bordeaux Exhibition Center in France. The online workshop and challenge are held concurrently with other on-site RoboCup leagues and challenges in the exhibition hall throughout the week.

@Home Simulation Education Challenge On-site Setup

Session with invited speaker Professor Tetsunari Inamura from Tamagawa University

The challenge consists of two parts: Handyman Task and Open Challenge. In a Handyman Task, the robot needs to understand human instructions to navigate to a specific room, pick up a particular object, and place it in a designated location. Two different trials are conducted, each with a different set of environments and instructions. The winner is the team with the highest score after completing both trials.

As for the Open Challenge, the team is required to conduct a 15-minute presentation that includes a robot simulation demo, followed by a 5-minute Q&A session. The main objective of the Open Challenge is to demonstrate the capabilities of each team’s robot system as a life support robot without any restrictions imposed by the task rules. Teams are encouraged to showcase their latest research and development on new approaches and applications for lifestyle support robots.

KameRider Airost Team in action during Handyman Task

Team KameRider Airost performed exceptionally well in the challenge, achieving a remarkable score of 70 in the first trial and 100 in the second. During the Open Challenge, they presented their findings on computer vision, which they had deduced while working on the challenge. In addition, the team contributed to the workshop content by developing the Human Navigation Task. They used natural language processing, position determination, and distance calculation methods to generate simple instructions for humans to interact in a virtual environment and perform specific tasks.

We applaud their magnificent work and efforts. Despite all the difficulties, their dedication throughout the journey is truly remarkable. They overcame academic stress, learned, and developed on multiple platforms within eight weeks. This also proves that every effort counts. With the mentors from Japan Open, who were the first generation KameRider Airost members, and their code as a foundation, the second generation contributed to the development faster and made the overall architecture more mature.

Demonstration session with invited guest Team SOBITS from Soka University Choi Laboratory, first place winner in RoboCup @Home Simulation Japan Open 2023.

Also, a warm shoutout to Saeed and Eslam, both 4th year Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering students. They are members of a different division of the KameRider Airost Team that participated in the RoboCup 2023 Bordeaux @Home Education Online Challenge. Although the team didn’t achieve the desired result in the Online Challenge this time, their efforts are admirable. They have gained invaluable experience and insights through this challenge.

Technical training and source code explanation session with Saeed

The UTM Airost Team initiated the KameRider Airost Team from UTM in collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey from MyEdu AI Robotics Research Centre. The first generation of team members included Saeed, Rui Kee, Chan Si Yuan, and Chai Han Qing. Since its founding in April 2023, the collaboration team has brought back two international awards within four months.

KameRide Airost Team in Japan Open 2023

UTM Airost Team was established in 2018 by seniors from the UTM RoboCup Team, who actively participated in the RoboCup @Home Education Challenge. In terms of its achievements, UTM Airost Team has secured first place in the RoboCup @Home Education Challenge during RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2017 Bangkok and won third position in the RoboCup @Home Education Challenge @KLESF 2019.

@Home Education Simulation Project Poster to RoboCup Federation

Congratulations to the team once again! Well done to all the members who fought hard. They pushed themselves and the team to a higher limit, achieving remarkable success. We hope their success story and inspirational achievement can motivate and inspire juniors and other students.