The care robot Amigo from Eindhoven University of Technology took second place at the RoboCup German Open in Magdeburg. Last year Tech United’s robot was first at the European Championships, but the team lagged behind in software development this year.
The winner of the RoboCup German Open was Homer from Koblenz, but the Eindhoven team managed to beat the reigning world champion ToBi from Bielefeld. Last year, TU/e was able to participate in RoboCup European Open 2016 with its soccer robots and care robots. This year, the unofficial European Championship for soccer robots was the competition in Portugal, where Tech United won, while the RoboCup German Open was the only European tournament for the @Home competition for care robots.
In the competition, robots have to perform household tasks and care tasks, such as bringing groceries in and then clearing them in a closet. The Sunday morning of the final, the Tech United team members still had to program new functionality for Amigo. The administrator had to be able to point to and issue a command or ask a question about the designated object, such as, “Who is that?” or ‘Can you indicate this object?’.
Due to a lack of manpower earlier this year, Amigo was not as prepared as desired, so the team did not have very high expectations. Team leader Matthijs van der Burgh: “We really squeezed the most out of it. We were able to implement new skills during the tournament. Amigo can now recognize the skeletal posture of people from his camera images, for example.” The World Cup will be held in Nagoya, Japan at the end of July.