FLY EAGLE
The Team Fly Eagle includes members from Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) and Khalifa University of Science and Technology. BIT has extensive experience in UAV. From overall design to aerodynamic design, structural design, and final production and processing, a variety of UAVs have been designed and developed by BIT according to different mission requirements, like FL5, F20, and so on. In multi-UAV cooperative control, BIT has developed technologies about distributed multi-UAV formation control and multi-UAV cooperative search algorithm for moving targets.
The BIT team is a global leader in research on intelligent unmanned systems, tackling various bottleneck robot technologies, and has proven excellence in robotics competitions. Some of the achievements are summarized below:
- MBZIRC 2017 - First in Challenge 1. The challenge was to autonomously land a UAV on a moving vehicle, under real-world conditions including strong wind and light flare.
- IMAV 2017 - Third place in the "Autonomous Navigation and Obstacle Avoidance in a Satellite-Free Environment" event at the International Micro and Small UAV Competition.
- 2018 - BIT won the UK International Student Aircraft Design Competition in weighted flight.
- 2019 - BIT won the overall champion of ICRA RoboMaster International Challenge on Artificial Intelligence.
- 2019 - Invited to participate in the Swiss Drone Innovation Week.
- MBZIRC 2020 – First in Challenge 1 and the only team to achieve the full score. The challenge was for multiple UAVs to collaborate to capture a ball attached with another UAV and to puncture 5 balloons on the ground.
- 2021 - BIT won ICCV "Drone Tracking" Challenge International Champion and Best Paper Award.
Khalifa University has profound research capabilities in marine robotics. It has a state-of-the-art marine pool equipped with an underwater tracking system with wave and stream generation facility. This allows testing of advance control strategies even in the presence of external disturbances. This facility will be used for developing the testbed of the MBZIRC challenge. Besides, the Khalifa University team has excelled in the field of grasping and manipulation in two-fold ways – the design and development of compliant manipulators, actuators, and end effectors. Khalifa University is one of the internationally leading teams in grasping algorithms and tactile sensing based on neuromorphic event-based cameras. Moreover, the Khalifa University team is working on developing end-to-end algorithms for grasping in a cluttered environment.
ROC
We are a team of two Scandinavian universities, Danmark Tekniske Universitet (DTU) and Luleå tekniska universitet (LTU), both very active in the scientific fields of Robotics and Autonomous Systems.
Our core expertise covers:
- robot perception
- manipulation,
- motion coordination,
- robust control, and
- localization in GNSS-denied environments,
We perform applied research both in maritime and aerial domains.
The ROC team has extensive experience in research, focusing on multi-autonomous systems technology. DTU has recently opened the Center for Collaborative Autonomous Systems, which is a multi-disciplinary innovation facility where several departments at DTU collaborate to solve societal challenges through autonomous systems technologies. This includes research and development efforts in drone, ground, surface and underwater robots and their application in real industrial environments. Similarly, LTU is running several ongoing activities, including the coordination and participation in numerous research projects involving multi-agent systems (e.g., H2020 Aeroworks, H2020 SIMS).
The team has vast experience in object detection and tracking, including maritime environments where research in buoys and vessel detection has been conducted. On this topic, the team coordinated the largest Danish project aimed at automating maritime transportation, namely the ShippingLab.
In the past, the ROC team has developed a fully autonomous navigation framework in constrained environments using Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC). Through the DARPA SubT Challenge participation experience was obtained in dark underground mine tunnels requiring the development of a fast and agile aerial navigation to rapidly explore unknown areas and provide feedback to the operator.
The team has strong experience in deploying robotic solutions and autonomous systems in field applications and real environments. The two organizations constituting the team have proven their technical competences in reaching podium positions in several robotic challenges in the past. The achievements are listed hereafter.
DARPA SubT Challenge 2021 (LTU) First Place – Stage 2.
MBZIRC 2020 – (DTU) Second Place – Challenge 3, third Place - Challenge 2, fourth Place – Grand Challenge;
MBZIRC 2017 – (DTU) second Place - Challenge 2, fourth Place – Grand Challenge
TEAM KAIST
Team KAIST consists of four university labs and two start-up companies centered around KAIST, a university in Republic of Korea. These institutes, specialized in autonomous vehicles of various domains, is led by Professor Dr. Jinwhan Kim, a faculty member of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at KAIST.
The four university labs are MORIN (Mobile Robotics & Intelligence Lab), USRG (Unmanned Systems Research Group), VILab (Visual Intelligence Lab), and IAM (Institute for Air Mobility). MORIN is a research lab of KAIST that focuses on autonomous vehicle technologies applicable to ground, aerial, surface water, and underwater domains with an emphasis on maritime systems. Owning several test-bed boats with different platform structures, the team has abundant experience in both the theoretical and practical establishment of autonomy algorithms. USRG is a research lab of KAIST, researching various unmanned intelligent robot platforms such as drones, autonomous vehicles, trams, and delivery robots. The lab focuses on integrating Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Navigation, and Control technologies onto these platforms. VILab is a research lab of KAIST for computer vision (CV) and machine learning (ML). Especially, the lab’s focus on CV & ML applications is aligned with the development of robot autonomy on various robot platforms: drones, cars, and quadrupedal robots. IAM is a research institute at Cheongju University, achieving a number of R&D and industry-university collaboration results in the field of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and drones.
PABLO AIR and Avikus are start-up companies for multi-drone systems and autonomous ship navigation solutions, respectively. PABLO AIR researches and develops swarm flight technology for simultaneous multi-drone control. One of the most outstanding fruitions is that Hanwha signed an agreement to develop a firework drone show and drew PABLO AIR’s World Guinness Record for “Most UAVs launching fireworks simultaneously.” AVIKUS is a spinoff company of Hyundai Heavy Industries Group and develops technologies for maritime surface ships and leisure boats, looking forward to commercializing the best autonomous ship technology in the industry. The company holds two solutions named HiNAS(Hyundai intelligent Navigation Assistant System) and Avikus Autonomous Boat Solution, for large merchant vessels and mid-small sized boats, respectively.
Team KAIST’s work at the simulation phase of the MBZIRC competition is split into two phases: inspection and intervention. The overall aim of the solution is to inspect the vessels one by one and then intervene when the target vessel is detected. To ensure good performance, it was important to acquire robust solutions for path planning (to reduce the inspection time), vision-based vessel identification, and object retrieval using a drone or a manipulator. For greater work efficiency, Team KAIST formed 6 inner sub-groups to handle different parts of the solution, which are UC (USV Control), MP (Mission Planning), CN (Coastal Navigation), UM (USV Manipulator), Drn (Drone), and Per (Perception). With this effort, Team KAIST achieved high-accuracy inspection and prototype intervention solutions. As more developments follow, Team KAIST will continue to work towards successfully accomplishing the goal mission of the MBZIRC competition.
UNIZG-FER
UNIZG-FER is a team of the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). FER is the leading national and regional research and higher education institution with excellent teachers and students, closely connected with the economy, excellently organized and internationally recognized. The team consists of two laboratories - LARICS (Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems) and LABUST (Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies). Therefore, it has a lot of experience in both aerial and marine applications of robotics. Together they have successfully carried out over 70 scientific research projects funded by the European Union (EC Horizon 2020, EU FP7), the NATO Science for Peace program and national scientific institutions such as the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports or the Croatian Science Foundation.
The team is comprised of 6 professors, 4 postdocs, 12 PhD students, and 2 mechanical engineers. Over the years, the team has gained extensive experience in the field of unmanned aerial systems, control of heterogeneous multi-agent systems, navigation, guidance and control, vehicle design, and human-robot interaction. The team has already participated in robotics competitions, starting with the European Robotics Challenges, a research project funded by the EU FP7 program, where they placed 3rd overall. The developed technology was transferred to a separate EU-H2020 project AeroWind. They also participated in the European Robotics League (ERL) Emergency Local Tournament in Seville, Spain, February 18-23, 2019, where they achieved great results - winning first place overall and best ground team. This performance also secured them the ERL Emergency Best Team of Season 2018/2019 award.
The LARICS team participated in the 2020 edition of the MBZIRC international robotics competition (https://larics-mbzirc.fer.hr/index.php/mbzirc2020/). Throughout the competition, the team solved all challenges in autonomous mode. The overall results over the four days of the competition were as follows:
Challenge 1: Intercepting an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) performing a figure-eight trajectory at a speed of up to 8 m/s and destroying the balloons in the arena - 15th out of 22 teams.
Challenge 2: Cooperative wall building with UAVs and a ground robot - 5th out of 19 teams.
Challenge 3: Firefighting task with simulated fires in a high-rise building - 7th out of 20 teams.
Grand Challenge: all tasks from each challenge running simultaneously - 14th out of 17 teams.
The driving force of this team is its talented and enthusiastic researchers, drawing on years of experience and guided by top researchers in the field of aerial manipulation and marine robotics. Previous competitive experience gives this team a good dose of confidence and strategic thinking needed to overcome this type of challenge.
WARSAW MIMOTAURS
The Nomagic Warsaw MIMotaurs team is a group of talented individuals from academic and business worlds who are working together to solve challenging problems in the field of robotics. The team was initially founded in 2019, but the six founding members had been collecting experience in world-class robotic competitions since 2016. As of today, the Nomagic Warsaw MIMotaurs team includes tens of talented Undergrad, Masters and PhD students who are working under the mentorship of world-renowned experts in robotics, communication and machine learning.
The team is based at the University of Warsaw, and is supported by the Faculty of Mathematics Informatics and Mechanics as well as the university as a whole. This support has provided the team with access to specialized equipment, facilities, and expertise that have been valuable as they work on innovative projects in the field of robotics.
One of the key focuses of the Nomagic Warsaw MIMotaurs team is competing in tough robotic challenges against the best teams from around the world. In recent years, the team has had success in several prestigious competitions, including the AlphaPilot competition, where they were able to make it to the finals, and the Martian Rovers competition, where they achieved a top ranking. These competitions have provided valuable opportunities for the team to showcase their skills and push the boundaries of what is possible in the field of robotics.
In addition to their competitive activities, the Nomagic Warsaw MIMotaurs team is also committed to advancing the state-of-the-art in the field of robotics through research and development. The team has worked on a variety of projects, including the development of autonomous drones and ground vehicles that are capable of performing specialized, complex tasks like autonomous drone racing or Martian rover analogues missions.
One of the key challenges that the Nomagic Warsaw MIMotaurs team has worked on is the development of systems that can operate autonomously without the need for human intervention. This requires advanced technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and advanced control systems, which the team has been able to develop and integrate into their systems.
In addition to their technical expertise, the members of the Nomagic Warsaw MIMotaurs team are also highly skilled in areas such as project management, communication, and teamwork with experience gathered from companies like Google, Meta, Amazon or Nvidia. These skills are essential for success in the highly competitive field of robotics, where teams must work together effectively in order to achieve their goals.
Overall, the Nomagic Warsaw MIMotaurs team is a highly talented and dedicated group of individuals who are working to push the boundaries of what is possible in the field of robotics. Through their efforts, they are helping to advance the state-of-the-art in robotics and make a positive impact on the world.