TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - 20 Years of RoboCup - A Subjective Retrospection JF - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz N2 - This summer, RoboCup competitions were held for the 20th time in Leipzig, Germany. It was the second time that RoboCup took place in Germany, 10 years after the 2006 RoboCup in Bremen. In this article, we give an overview on the latest developments of RoboCup and what happened in the different leagues over the last decade. With its 20th edition, RoboCup clearly is a success story and a role model for robotics competitions. From our personal view point, we acknowledge this by giving a retrospection about what makes RoboCup such a success. Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0449-5 SN - 1610-1987 VL - 30 IS - 3 SP - 225 EP - 232 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Booysen, T. A1 - Stopforth, R. T1 - Why it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa: Experiences from German South African collaborations JF - International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems N2 - Robots are widely used as a vehicle to spark interest in science and technology in learners. A number of initiatives focus on this issue, for instance, the Roberta Initiative, the FIRST Lego League, the World Robot Olympiad and RoboCup Junior. Robotic competitions are valuable not only for school learners but also for university students, as the RoboCup initiative shows. Besides technical skills, the students get some project exposure and experience what it means to finish their tasks on time. But qualifying students for future high-tech areas should not only be for students from developed countries. In this article, we present our experiences with research and education in robotics within the RoboCup initiative, in Germany and South Africa; we report on our experiences with trying to get the RoboCup initiative in South Africa going. RoboCup has a huge support base of academic institutions in Germany; this is not the case in South Africa. We present our ‘north–south’ collaboration initiatives in RoboCup between Germany and South Africa and discuss some of the reasons why we think it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa. Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1729881416662789 SN - 1729-8806 VL - 13 IS - 5 SP - 1 EP - 13 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Leingartner, Max A1 - Maurer, Johannes A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - Evaluation of Sensors and Mapping Approaches for Disasters in Tunnels JF - Journal of Field Robotics N2 - Ground or aerial robots equipped with advanced sensing technologies, such as three-dimensional laser scanners and advanced mapping algorithms, are deemed useful as a supporting technology for first responders. A great deal of excellent research in the field exists, but practical applications at real disaster sites are scarce. Many projects concentrate on equipping robots with advanced capabilities, such as autonomous exploration or object manipulation. In spite of this, realistic application areas for such robots are limited to teleoperated reconnaissance or search. In this paper, we investigate how well state-of-the-art and off-the-shelf components and algorithms are suited for reconnaissance in current disaster-relief scenarios. The basic idea is to make use of some of the most common sensors and deploy some widely used algorithms in a disaster situation, and to evaluate how well the components work for these scenarios. We acquired the sensor data from two field experiments, one from a disaster-relief operation in a motorway tunnel, and one from a mapping experiment in a partly closed down motorway tunnel. Based on these data, which we make publicly available, we evaluate state-of-the-art and off-the-shelf mapping approaches. In our analysis, we integrate opinions and replies from first responders as well as from some algorithm developers on the usefulness of the data and the limitations of the deployed approaches, respectively. We discuss the lessons we learned during the two missions. These lessons are interesting for the community working in similar areas of urban search and rescue, particularly reconnaissance and search. Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/rob.21611 SN - 1556-4967 VL - 33 IS - 8 SP - 1037 EP - 1057 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - Abstracting Away Low-Level Details in Service Robotics with Fuzzy Fluents JF - Model-Driven Knowledge Engineering for Improved Software Modularity in Robotics and Automation. Workshop at European Robotics Forum 2015 Vienna, Austria, March 11-13, 2015. Y1 - 2015 SP - 1 EP - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alhwarin, Faraj A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Scholl, Ingrid T1 - IR stereo kinect: improving depth images by combining structured light with IR stereo Y1 - 2014 SP - 1 EP - 9 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Towards applying soccer moves in the RoboCup Standard Platform League JF - ÖGAI-Journal Y1 - 2008 SN - 0254-4326 VL - Bd. 27 IS - H. 3 SP - 4 EP - 9 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald A1 - McPhillips, Graeme A1 - Niemüller, Tim A1 - Potgieter, Anet T1 - Team Zadeat 2009 : team report Y1 - 2009 VL - 6 SP - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Niemüller, Tim A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - Team Zadeat 2010 : application for participation Y1 - 2010 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Beck, Daniel A1 - Buchleitner, Martin A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Niemüller, Tim A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - Mostly Harmless & AllemaniACs - mixed innovations Y1 - 2014 SP - 1 EP - 8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Vorst, Phillip A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - AllemaniACs3D team description Y1 - 2006 SP - 1 EP - 6 ER -