ICRA 2022 Robotic Grasping and Manipulation Competition: Manufacturing Track

There will be two manufacturing sub-tasks in the competition, Assembly and Disassembly of a NIST Task Board (NTB).  A pre-competition design will be made available for selected teams to continue development of their systems leading up to the competition.  A separate competition board with modified assembly positions (very similar to the pre-competition NTB), and new parts (identical to all parts used in practice), will be supplied prior to a team’s scheduled competition run. 

Teams must apply to compete in this competition.  Please send a one to two-page text description of the robotic assembly system that you will use to compete by March 10, 2022 to Yu Sun (yusun [at] mail.usf.edu (yusun[at]mail[dot]usf[dot]edu)).  Include descriptions of your autonomous assembly strategies and robotic assembly system; robot manipulators, end effector technology, sensors used for perception, control software and any plans for incorporating the use of supplied CAD data.  Solutions that rely primarily on teaching (also called lead through programming) are not recommended.  Images and Videos that help describe your system and operating principles are encouraged, but not required.  Also include shipping information for sending NTBs in the case that your team is selected as follows:

Company/Organization:

*Attention:          

Address:             

Country/Territory:          

Postal Code:      

City or Town:    

State/Province/County:

Telephone:        

E-mail Address:

* It’s very important that a person’s name is included in the Attention field.

Note:  The organizers cannot guarantee the shipping times of the NTBs.  Therefore, we have also included all sources and instructions for producing the practice board (pre-competition NTB) on the manufacturing track web site.

In the event that COVID-19 restrictions effect the in-person competition, the manufacturing track is prepared to accommodate teams that are interested in participating virtually. A separate competition day will be held for this format. 

Competition Design:

The goal of the competition is to test the capabilities of a robot system in performing assembly operations relative to a small-parts manufacturing process using assembly task boards.  The task board for this competition was designed based on similar task boards that have been developed as part of a NIST project to support the advancement of robotic systems for variable small-batch production runs in future manufacturing systems (see: https://www.nist.gov/el/intelligent-systems-division-73500/robotic-grasping-and-manipulation-assembly/assembly), including a new task board for wire harness fabrication.

Competition parts have been selected to replicate typical manufacturing assembly operations.  Competing robot systems should recognize, grasp, and assemble/disassemble various parts including flexible ones, and assemble/disassemble a new product by quickly reconfiguring the system.  The limited competition time and bonus applied remaining time should encourage autonomous system designs where the use of perception (machine vision and force sensing) will eliminate the time associated with teaching (also called lead through programming) and the need for jigs (also called fixturing).  The principles of design & manufacture make part data readily available to the automated systems in the form of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) data.  Therefore, all CAD models will be made available to competitors in the form of SOLIDWORKS part and assembly files. 

The manufacturing track of the ICRA 2022 Robotic Grasping and Manipulation Competition will consist of two subtasks; an assembly subtask, and a disassembly subtask both using a task board.  Figure 1 shows the conceptual design to be used for the ICRA 2022 task board.  Many of the components used are the same as those previously used on the 2019 and 2020 competitions.  When the competition task board is removed from a sealed box at the start of the competition run, an example kit layout is also provided to present parts for the assembly subtask.  During the competition the location of the parts on the task board and the kit will change.  

In a remote format, each team’s competition run will be recorded by teams in their respective robot laboratory and viewed live using video conferencing by a remote judge. Each team is responsible for video recording their entire competition period and must send this video to the competition organizer. The locations of the task board and kit must be randomly defined using Velcro attachment points and tape at the start of the competition under the supervision of the remote judge.  Random board placement and part position changes are used to highly encourage the use of autonomous system designs.  More detail is provided in the rules document below.

1. Preliminary rules and scoring for the competition (subject to change)
2. Instructions to Produce an ICRA 2022 Manufacturing Track Practice Task Board 
3. Kit files
4. SOLIDWORKS Computer Aided Design (CAD) files
5. Stereolithography (STL) files
6. Miscellaneous files
   1. LaserCutBoard
   2. Bolt Holder
   3. Wire Rack
7. Demonstration video of task board assembly:

Video of NTB assembled and disassembled by human

Assembly demonstration of the IROS 2021 Robotic Grasping and Manipulation Competition: Manufacturing Track task board
This video provides users of the ICRA 2022 Robotic Grasping and Manipulation Competition: Manufacturing Track task board with a description of the general steps required to assemble and disassemble the board during competition subtasks. Users of the board first prepare the competition setup by setting wires and fasteners in a dispenser of choice, randomly placing the kit layout with components placed on each location, and randomly placing the task board. (Judges will confirm the placement of kit mat and task board). Competitors then begin the competition (clock starts) by autonomously assembling the NTB using their robot system. Once completed, the competition clock is stopped. Judges record the time.  Teams manually assemble the rest of the NTB to prepare for disassembly. If teams were not able to complete the wire harness portion of assembly, *they may use a NIST provided wire harness. Once the board is fully assembled, subtask 2: disassembly begins (clock starts). Teams disassemble the NTB by removing parts from the board and placing them in a kit tray. Once completed, the clock is stopped, and scores are recorded. [No Audio]

* Because of COVID shipping issues we were not able to receive parts in time for the NIST wire harness component. Teams that are unable to complete the wire harness portion of the task board may assemble the wire harness by hand to prepare for subtask 2: disassembly.