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 - 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 - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Neumann, Tobias A1 - Henke, Christoph A1 - Schönitz, Sebastian A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - Improvements for a robust production in the RoboCup logistics league 2016 T2 - RoboCup 2016: Robot World Cup XX. RoboCup 2016. Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-319-68792-6 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68792-6_49 SP - 589 EP - 600 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Karras, Ulrich A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Meisterschaft der Maschinen: Die Industrial Logistic Liga JF - C´t Magazin für Computertechnik Y1 - 2017 IS - 26 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - The Interplay of Aldebaran and RoboCup JF - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0440-1 SN - 1610-1987 VL - 30 IS - 3-4 SP - 325 EP - 326 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - 20 Years of RoboCup JF - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0442-z SN - 1610-1987 VL - 30 IS - 3-4 SP - 221 EP - 224 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Steinbauer, Gerald T1 - Looking back on 20 Years of RoboCup JF - KI - Künstliche Intelligenz Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13218-016-0443-y SN - 1610-1987 VL - 30 IS - 3-4 SP - 321 EP - 323 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Zwilling, Frederik A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard A1 - Löbach, Matthias A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Cyber-Physical System Intelligence T2 - Industrial Internet of Things N2 - Cyber-physical systems are ever more common in manufacturing industries. Increasing their autonomy has been declared an explicit goal, for example, as part of the Industry 4.0 vision. To achieve this system intelligence, principled and software-driven methods are required to analyze sensing data, make goal-directed decisions, and eventually execute and monitor chosen tasks. In this chapter, we present a number of knowledge-based approaches to these problems and case studies with in-depth evaluation results of several different implementations for groups of autonomous mobile robots performing in-house logistics in a smart factory. We focus on knowledge-based systems because besides providing expressive languages and capable reasoning techniques, they also allow for explaining how a particular sequence of actions came about, for example, in the case of a failure. KW - Smart factory KW - Industry 4.0 KW - Multi-robot systems KW - Autonomous mobile robots KW - RoboCup Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-319-42559-7 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42559-7_17 N1 - Springer Series in Wireless Technology SP - 447 EP - 472 PB - Springer CY - Cham 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 - http://dx.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 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Decision-Theoretic Planning with Fuzzy Notions in GOLOG JF - International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems N2 - In this paper we present an extension of the action language Golog that allows for using fuzzy notions in non-deterministic argument choices and the reward function in decision-theoretic planning. Often, in decision-theoretic planning, it is cumbersome to specify the set of values to pick from in the non-deterministic-choice-of-argument statement. Also, even for domain experts, it is not always easy to specify a reward function. Instead of providing a finite domain for values in the non-deterministic-choice-of-argument statement in Golog, we now allow for stating the argument domain by simply providing a formula over linguistic terms and fuzzy uents. In Golog’s forward-search DT planning algorithm, these formulas are evaluated in order to find the agent’s optimal policy. We illustrate this in the Diner Domain where the agent needs to calculate the optimal serving order. Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S0218488516400134 SN - 1793-6411 VL - 24 IS - Issue Suppl. 2 SP - 123 EP - 143 PB - World Scientific CY - Singapur ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Walenta, Robert A1 - Schellekens, Twan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Schiffer, Stefan T1 - A decentralised system approach for controlling AGVs with ROS T2 - AFRICON, Proceedings Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-1-5386-2775-4 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/AFRCON.2017.8095693 SN - 2153-0033 N1 - AFRICON <2017, 18-20 Sept., Cape Town, South Africa> SP - 1436 EP - 1441 PB - IEEE ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, T. A1 - Lakemeyer, G. A1 - Reuter, S. A1 - Jeschke, S. A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Benchmarking of Cyber-Physical Systems in Industrial Robotics: The RoboCup Logistics League as a CPS Benchmark Blueprint T2 - Cyber-Physical Systems: Foundations, Principles and Applications N2 - In the future, we expect manufacturing companies to follow a new paradigm that mandates more automation and autonomy in production processes. Such smart factories will offer a variety of production technologies as services that can be combined ad hoc to produce a large number of different product types and variants cost-effectively even in small lot sizes. This is enabled by cyber-physical systems that feature flexible automated planning methods for production scheduling, execution control, and in-factory logistics. During development, testbeds are required to determine the applicability of integrated systems in such scenarios. Furthermore, benchmarks are needed to quantify and compare system performance in these industry-inspired scenarios at a comprehensible and manageable size which is, at the same time, complex enough to yield meaningful results. In this chapter, based on our experience in the RoboCup Logistics League (RCLL) as a specific example, we derive a generic blueprint for how a holistic benchmark can be developed, which combines a specific scenario with a set of key performance indicators as metrics to evaluate the overall integrated system and its components. KW - Smart factory KW - Industry 4.0 KW - Cyber-physical systems KW - Multi-robot systems KW - Autonomous mobile robots Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-803801-7.00013-4 SP - 193 EP - 207 PB - Academic Press CY - London ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niemueller, Tim A1 - Neumann, Tobias A1 - Henke, Christoph A1 - Schönitz, Sebastian A1 - Reuter, Sebastian A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Jeschke, Sabina A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - International Harting Open Source Award 2016: Fawkes for the RoboCup Logistics League T2 - RoboCup 2016: RoboCup 2016: Robot World Cup XX. RoboCup 2016 Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-319-68792-6 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68792-6_53 N1 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS, Vol 9776 SP - 634 EP - 642 PB - Springer CY - Cham 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 - http://dx.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 - CHAP A1 - Marco, Heather G. A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - AGNES: The African-German Network of Excellence in Science T2 - Proceedings of the 2nd Developing World Robotics Forum, Workshop at IEEE AFRICON 2017 Y1 - 2017 SP - 1 EP - 2 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 - Alhwarin, Faraj A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Scholl, Ingrid T1 - CRVM: Circular Random Variable-based Matcher - A Novel Hashing Method for Fast NN Search in High-dimensional Spaces T2 - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Pattern Recognition Applications and Methods, ICPRAM 2018 Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-989-758-276-9 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.5220/0006692802140221 SP - 214 EP - 221 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Alhwarin, Faraj A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Scholl, Ingrid T1 - Optimized KinectFusion Algorithm for 3D Scanning Applications T2 - Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 2: BIOIMAGING Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-989-758-278-3 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.5220/0006594700500057 SP - 50 EP - 57 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Hofmann, Till A1 - Mataré, Victor A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard T1 - Constraint-based online transformation of abstract plans into executable robot actions T2 - Proceedings of the 2018 AAAI Spring Symposium on Integrating Representation, Reasoning, Learning, and Execution for Goal Directed Autonomy Y1 - 2018 SP - 549 EP - 553 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Schiffer, Stefan A1 - Kallweit, Stephan T1 - The ROSIN Education Concept - Fostering ROS Industrial-Related Robotics Education in Europe T2 - ROBOT 2017: Third Iberian Robotics Conference Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-3-319-70836-2 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70836-2_31 N1 - Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 694; (AISC, volume 694) SP - 370 EP - 381 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER -