Opening Ceremony



**Abstract:** Recent advances in deep learning and GPU-based computing have enabled significant progress in several areas of robotics, including navigation, visual recognition, and object manipulation.  This progress has turned applications such as autonomous driving and delivery tasks in warehouses, hospitals, or hotels into realistic application scenarios.  However, robust manipulation in complex settings is still an open research problem. Various efforts at NVIDIA robotics research investigate how deep learning along with physics-based and photo-realistic simulation can be used to train manipulators in virtual environments and then deploy them in the real world.  Our work shows promising results on different pieces of the manipulation puzzle, including manipulator control, touch sensing, object pose detection, and object pick and place.  In this talk, I will present some of these advances. I will describe a robot manipulator that can open and close cabinet doors and drawers, detect and pickup known and unknown objects, and move these objects to desired locations.  Our baseline system is designed to be applicable in a wide variety of environments, only relying on 3D articulated models of the kitchen and the relevant objects. I will discuss lessons learned so far, and various research directions toward enabling more robust and general manipulation systems.

**Speaker:** [Dieter Fox](https://underline.io/speakers/106626-dieter-fox)

Keynote 1 - Dieter Fox: Toward robust manipulation in complex environments



**Abstract:** Robots are moving machines submitted to the physical laws of gravity. The talk reports more than 30 years of fundamental research on robot motion planning and control, a research that ranges from computational geometry to probabilistic algorithms via nonholonomic systems. The talk will be illustrated by success stories in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), mobile robotics, humanoid robotics and biomechanics.

**Speaker:** [Jean-Paul Laumond](https://underline.io/speakers/106627-jean-paul-laumond)

Keynote 2 - Jean-Paul Laumond: Robotics: The Science of Motion

Opening Remarks

Session 1: Perception, Learning, Human-Robot Interaction, and Sponsored Projects

Panel Discussion & AMA: Building a Research Career with RoboCup

Award Ceremony - Junior Leagues

Handover Ceremony

Award Ceremony - Major Leagues


**Abstract:** Robots can act as a force multiplier for people, whether a robot assisting an astronaut with a repair on the International Space station, a UAV taking flight over our cities, or an autonomous vehicle driving through our streets. Existing approaches use action-based representations that do not capture the goal-based meaning of a language expression and do not generalize to partially observed environments.  The aim of my research program is to create autonomous robots that can understand complex goal-based commands and execute those commands in partially observed, dynamic environments.  I will describe demonstrations of object-search in a POMDP setting with information about object locations provided by language, and mapping between English and Linear Temporal Logic, enabling a robot to understand complex natural language commands in city-scale environments.  These advances represent steps towards robots that interpret complex natural language commands in partially observed environments using a decision theoretic framework.

**Speaker:** [Stefanie Tellex](https://underline.io/speakers/106628-stefanie-tellex)

Keynote 3 - Stefanie Tellex: Towards Complex Language in Partially Observed Environments

[![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/21d13e03491d7e9acf6b8c46c7979c25.png)](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SCDDfkQk7es4J6RULKHVx1RzbB0Mutla--Sle5SVfb0/edit?usp=sharing)

**RoboCup 2021 will be Worldwide!**

We are excited to announce that RoboCup 2021 is a fully remote event with RoboCup competitions and activities taking place all over the world. Everyone is invited to participate in, or observe, the [competition leagues](https://2021.robocup.org/leagues) and the [symposium](https://2021.robocup.org/symposium)!

**RoboCup Symposium**

The 24th RoboCup International Symposium will be held in conjunction with RoboCup 2021 in a purely online setting. Scientific papers will be presented reporting innovative, original research with relevance to robotics and artificial intelligence. Within the described scope of topics we also encouraged submissions of high-quality overview articles, papers describing real-world research, and papers reporting theoretical results. In addition to the main track with regular research papers, there will be a special track focused on systems, data, and benchmarks featuring papers describing novel, open-source hardware and software systems, as well as datasets and benchmarks relevant to the community. In addition to research paper presentations, the RoboCup Symposium 2021 includes keynote talks by Dieter Fox, Jean-Paul Laumond, and Stefanie Tellex, and several interactive sessions.

**RoboCup Introduction Video**
<iframe width="995" height="516" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cnh43cCsDKU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Registration is required for entrance into RoboCup 2021. <br><br>
**Fees:** 
* Major Faculty or Symposium Faculty - US$50
* Major Student, Junior Mentor, Junior Student, or Symposium Student - US$20 

***Members of qualified teams:** Please contact your league for your registration password and proceed to register with your team. *<br>
***All non-team members:** Please register as "Symposium Only".*

You need to be registered to explore this event!

RoboCup 2021

The 24th RoboCup International Symposium will be held in conjunction with RoboCup 2021 in a purely online setting. Scientific papers will be presented reporting innovative, original research with relevance to robotics and artificial intelligence. Within the described scope of topics we also encouraged submissions of high-quality overview articles, papers describing real-world research, and papers reporting theoretical results. In addition to the main track with regular research papers, there will be a special track focused on systems, data, and benchmarks featuring papers describing novel, open-source hardware and software systems, as well as datasets and benchmarks relevant to the community. In addition to research paper presentations, the RoboCup Symposium 2021 includes keynote talks by Dieter Fox, Jean-Paul Laumond, and Stefanie Tellex, and several interactive sessions.

Do you have any other suggestions or comments?

Your vote has been successfully recorded.