The competition is now closed. The winning teams are:
- 1st Place (TIE): KEEPON (NICT, Japan & CMU, USA) and HOAP-3 (EPFL, Switzerland)
- 2nd Place: Robot Weight Loss Coach, MIT and Intuitive Automata, USA
- 3rd Place: Kaspar, Univ. of Hertfordshire, UK
- 4rth Place: Robotvie, Univ. of Osaka, Japan
LEFT: The Winner Robots, Keepon (left) and Hoap-3 (right). RIGHT : The winning teams (from left to right): Eric Sauser (EPFL), Aude Billard (EPFL), Basilio Noris (EPFL), Sylvain Calinon (EPFL), Marino Alge (EPFL), Marek Michalowski (CMU), Hideki Kozima (NICT)
Some videos taken during this competition as well as some related videos can be found below:
Chief Cook and Keepon dancing together @ ICRA: Download
Chief Cook playing Pong with ICRA participants: Download , On YouTube
Chief Cook preparing an omelette: Download , On YouTube , On YouTube (long version)
Chief Cook dancing around Switzerland: Download
HRI has by now become a major research field in robotics. The ICRA'08 HRI Challenge aims at demonstrating a number of state-of-the-art platforms in HRI, as well as provide a realistic platform (the ICRA Conference) for evaluating the effectiveness of the interaction.
The ICRA'08 Human-Robot Interaction Challenge is one of the 3 ICRA'08 Challenges. It will take place during the ICRA'08 Conference on May 20-22 2008 at the Conference Site.
RULES AND PARTICIPATION:
In order to leave the floor open to any team working in HRI, there is no specific requirements neither on the shape and sensori-motor capabilities of the robot, nor on the experimental context . We accept any robot: wheel-based platforms, as much as humanoids ones are welcome. We also accept WOZ type of experiments or video-based HRI experiments. And we leave it up to the teams to define the experimental context, i.e. the type of the interaction.
Thus, at this stage, the sole requirements we
set for taking part in the HRI Challenge concern the robot's behavior. The robot should be at least endowed with EITHER OF THE FOLLOWING TWO CAPABILITIES:
- The ability to learn by interacting with a human (we say nothing about what the robot can learn; being more restrictive in the learning capabilities would constrain too much the hardware of the robot).
- The ability to interact socially (this includes any of the following capabilities: detecting humans, detecting human activities, respond to humans; infer human intention, communicate verbally or in other manner, detect and respond to human emotion, ...).
The effectiveness of a robot engaging in HRI must be evaluated by human users who got the chance to interact with the robot for a sufficiently long period of time. This challenge thus requires that the robots be highly interactive and run constantly throughout ICRA.
The robots' behavior will be evaluated formally by a team composed of 10 official
evaluators (10 experts in robotics, but not necessarily in HRI) and
lay people (all the people attending the conference will be given a
questionnaire to fill in). The questionnaires will be prepared by
experts in HRI evaluation methodologies. The exact scoring system is
yet to be defined, but it will at least encompass a score according
to the two requirements on the robot's behavior listed above.
CONTACT:
For any question regarding the rules to enter the competition and the way the competition will run, contact the icra-discussion mailing list.
CONFIRMED PARTICIPANTS:
| Demo | Team | |
| Robovie-IV | ATR & Osaka University, Japan |
|
| Interaction with KASPAR I | U. Hertfordshire, United Kingdom |
|
| Robotic Weight Loss Coach | MIT and Intituitive Automata, USA |
|
| Keepon | NICT, Japan & CMU, USA |
|
| Hoap3 | EPFL, Switzerland |
|