Mobile Manipulation Hackathon: Moving into Real World Applications

The Mobile Manipulation Hackathon was held in late 2018 during the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) to showcase the latest applications of wheeled robotic manipulators. The challenge had an open format, where teams developed an application using simulation tools and integrated it into a robotic platform. This article presents the competition and analyzes the results, with information gathered during the event and from a survey circulated among the finalist teams. We provide an overview of the mobile manipulation field, identify key areas required for further development to facilitate the implementation of mobile manipulators in real applications, and discuss ideas about how to structure future hackathon-style competitions to enhance their impact on the scientific and industrial communities.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS 1994), volume 1

The AIAA/NASA Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS '94) was originally proposed because of the strong belief that America's problems of global economic competitiveness and job creation and preservation can partly be solved by the use of intelligent robotics, which are also required for human space exploration missions. Individual sessions addressed nuclear industry, agile manufacturing, security/building monitoring, on-orbit applications, vision and sensing technologies, situated control and low-level control, robotic systems architecture, environmental restoration and waste management, robotic remanufacturing, and healthcare applications