TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Marais, Stephen A1 - Potgieter, Anet A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - RoboCup Junior: A vehicle for S&T education in Africa? Y1 - 2011 SN - 978-1-61284-992-8 N1 - AFRICON, 2011 SP - 1 EP - 6 PB - IEEE CY - New York ER - 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 - https://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 - 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 - 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 - https://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 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Niemüller, Tim A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - Team Zadeat 2010 : application for participation Y1 - 2010 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Dylla, Frank A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - Specifying Multirobot Coordination in ICPGolog - From Simulation towards Real Robots / Dylla, Frank ; Ferrein, Alexander ; Lakemeyer, Gerhard Y1 - 2003 N1 - AOS-4 at IJCAI-03 SP - 1 EP - 10 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemüller, Tim A1 - Ewert, Daniel A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - RoboCup logistics league sponsored by festo: A competitive factory automation testbed T2 - RoboCup 2013: Robot World Cup XVII : Eindhoven; Netherlands; 1 July 2013 through 1 July 2013. (Lecture notes in computer science ; 8371) N2 - A new trend in automation is to deploy so-called cyber-physical systems (CPS) which combine computation with physical processes. The novel RoboCup Logistics League Sponsored by Festo (LLSF) aims at such CPS logistic scenarios in an automation setting. A team of robots has to produce products from a number of semi-finished products which they have to machine during the game. Different production plans are possible and the robots need to recycle scrap byproducts. This way, the LLSF is a very interesting league offering a number of challenging research questions for planning, coordination, or communication in an application-driven scenario. In this paper, we outline the objectives of the LLSF and present steps for developing the league further towards a benchmark for logistics scenarios for CPS. As a major milestone we present the new automated referee system which helps in governing the game play as well as keeping track of the scored points in a very complex factory scenario. Y1 - 2014 SN - 978-3-662-44467-2 (Print) 978-3-662-44468-9 (Online) SP - 336 EP - 347 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - A System Layout for Cognitive Service Robots T2 - Cognitive Robot Architectures. Proceedings of EUCognition 2016 Y1 - 2017 SN - 1613-0073 N1 - CEUR-WS Vol-1855 SP - 44 EP - 45 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Stopforth, Riaan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - Europe and South African collaboration on the Mechatronics and Robotics systems as part of the SA Robotics Center T2 - ICRA 2015 Developing Countries Forum N2 - Mechatronics consist of the integration of mechanical engineering, electronic integration and computer science/ engineering. These broad fields are essential for robotic systems, yet it makes it difficult for the researchers to specialize and be experts in all these fields. Collaboration between researchers allow for the integration of experience and specialization, to allow optimized systems. Collaboration between the European countries and South Africa is critical, as each country has different resources available, which the other countries might not have. Applications with the need for approval of any restrictions, can also be obtained easier in some countries compared to others, thus preventing the delays of research. Some problems that have been experienced are discussed, with the Robotics Center of South Africa as a possible solution. Y1 - 2015 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Zug, Sebastian A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Hochgeschwender, Nico A1 - Seidensticker, Kai A1 - Seidel, Martin A1 - Friedrich, Tim A1 - Neumann, Tobias A1 - Karras, Ulrich A1 - Kraetzschmar, Gerhard K. A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - An Integration Challenge to Bridge the Gap Among Industry-Inspired RoboCup Leagues T2 - RoboCup 2016: Robot World Cup XX. RoboCup 2016. Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-319-68792-6 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68792-6_13 N1 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS, Vol 9776 SP - 157 EP - 168 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Hermanns, Lutz A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - Comparing Sensor Fusion Techniques for Ball Position Estimation / Ferrein, Alexander ; Hermanns, Lutz ; Lakemeyer, Gerhard JF - RoboCup 2005: Robot Soccer World Cup IX Y1 - 2006 SN - 978-3-540-35437-6 N1 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science ; 4020 SP - 154 EP - 165 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - Football is coming Home / Schiffer, Stefan ; Ferrein, Alexander ; Lakemeyer, Gerhard JF - PCAR '06 Proceedings of the 2006 international symposium on Practical cognitive agents and robots Y1 - 2006 SN - 1-74052-130-7 SP - 39 EP - 50 PB - ACM CY - New York, NY ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Stopforth, Riaan A1 - Davrajh, Shaniel A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - South African robotics entity for a collaboration initiative T2 - Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa and Robotics and Mechatronics International Conference (PRASA-RobMech), 2016 Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-1-5090-3335-5 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/RoboMech.2016.7813144 N1 - PRASA-RobMech, Nov. 30 2016-Dec. 2 2016, Stellenbosch, South Africa SP - 1 EP - 6 PB - IEEE ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Mies, Christoph A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - Repairing Decision-Theoretic Policies Using Goal-Oriented Planning / Mies, Christoph ; Ferrein, Alexander ; Lakemeyer, Gerhard JF - KI 2008: Advances in Artificial Intelligence : 31st Annual German Conference on AI, KI 2008, Kaiserslautern, Germany, September 23-26, 2008. Proceedings Y1 - 2008 SN - 978-3-540-85844-7 N1 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science ; 5243 SP - 267 EP - 275 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard A1 - Ferrein, Alexander ED - Finzi, Alberto T1 - The RoboCup Logistics League as a Benchmark for Planning in Robotics T2 - Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob-15); Jerusalem, Israel 7-8/6/2015 Y1 - 2015 SP - 63 EP - 68 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Rens, Gavin A1 - Poel, Etienne van der T1 - A BDI agent architecture for a POMDP planner / Rens, Gavin ; Ferrein, Alexander ; Poel, Etienne van der Y1 - 2009 N1 - 9th International Symposium on Logical Formalization of Commonsense Reasoning: Commonsense 2009, Toronto, Canada, 1-3 June, 2009 SP - 1 EP - 6 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Limpert, Nicolas A1 - Wiesen, Patrick A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Kallweit, Stephan A1 - Schiffer, Stefan T1 - The ROSIN Project and its Outreach to South Africa JF - R&D Journal Y1 - 2019 VL - 35 SP - 1 EP - 6 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 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1729881416662789 SN - 1729-8806 VL - 13 IS - 5 SP - 1 EP - 13 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Alhwarin, Faraj A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Scholl, Ingrid T1 - An Optimized Method for 3D Body Scanning Applications Based on KinectFusion T2 - Communications in Computer and Information Science Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29196-9_6 SN - 1865-0929 N1 - 11th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, BIOSTEC 2018; Funchal; Portugal; 19 January 2018 through 21 January 2018 VL - 1024 SP - 100 EP - 113 PB - Springer ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Mataré, Victor A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander ED - Steinbauer, Gerald ED - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - golog++ : An integrative system design T2 - CogRob 2018. Cognitive Robotics Workshop : Proceedings of the 11th Cognitive Robotics Workshop 2018 co-located with 16th International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR 2018) Tempe, AZ, USA, October 27th, 2018 Y1 - 2019 SN - 1613-0073 SP - 29 EP - 35 ER -