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Ten Years of the AAAI Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition Looking Back and to the Future AI Magazine Volume 23 Number 1 (2002) (© AAAI) Articles Ten Years of the AAAI Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition Looking Back and to the Future Tucker Balch and Holly A. Yanco ■ Summer 2001 marked the tenth AAAI Mobile Pete Bonasso recalls that the entertainment Robot Competition and Exhibition. A decade of industry had laid some of the groundwork for contests and exhibitions have inspired innovation the contest by building expectations and and research in AI robotics. Here we look back at excitement about robots in many people’s the origins of the contest and how it evolved. We imaginations. Characters such as Star Trek’s also reflect on how the contest has served as an COMMANDER DATA and BISHOP,the “artificial per- arena for important debates in the AI and robotics communities. The article closes with a speculative son” in James Cameron’s Aliens, made us all look forward to the next decade of AAAI robot think about what might be possible. The con- competitions. crete idea for a competition took root after a panel at AAAI-1991 on household robots. “Neats and scruffies alike were mesmerized by the animal-like responses of the robots demon- strated there,” says Bonasso. “At the end of “This won’t be a slick, polished competi- that panel, a bunch of us got with Tom to talk tion. There will be a certain amount of up the idea of a competition.”1 chaos, but I can guarantee there will be a Then-president of the AAAI, Patrick Hayes, lot of excitement and enthusiasm.” hoped the contest would highlight the “cogni- —Tom Dean, 1992 tive possibilities for mobile robots” and demonstrate “the long-standing symbiotic relationship between AI and robots” (Dean n 1992, Tom Dean and Pete Bonasso con- and Bonasso 1993). Of course, some felt there vinced the American Association for Artifi- is more than a symbiosis between AI and Icial Intelligence (AAAI) to host a robot com- robotics; that there could be no intelligence petition at the National Conference on AI; the without embodiment (Brooks 1991). Over the AAAI Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibi- years, the event and AI Magazine have served as tion was born. The event has endured to a venue for this and several other intellectual become the oldest AI-centric robotics competi- debates, including sensing versus modeling, tion in the world. As we near the end of our color-based versus shape-based object recogni- first decade, it seems worthwhile to reflect on tion, and reactive control versus symbolic what the origins of the event were, how it has planning for robot navigation (Balch et al. evolved, and where it is headed. 1995; Buhmann et al. 1995; Dudek 1998; Firby Copyright © 2002, American Association for Artificial Intelligence. All rights reserved. 0738-4602-2002 / $2.00 SPRING 2002 13 Articles decade of competitions has seen a mellowing of the “religious” fervor on these issues as well as a realization among many that reactivity, planning, and representation will all play a role in the successful robots of the new millen- nium. Evolution The contest immediately took on two impor- tant but apparently conflicting roles: First, it provided a target for research in AI and robot- ics; in Pete Bonasso’s words, the event was cast “in the spirit of trying to develop as animate, responsive, and intelligent robot behavior as possible” (Dean and Bonasso 1993). Second, the contest provided a venue where people could demonstrate their work to the AI com- munity. Contest organizers faced the challenge of devising compelling problems worthy of world-class research (and the funding that goes with it) while balancing risk. The risk arises from the danger of setting the bar so high that no robot can complete the task. In the worst Figure 1. SCARECROW, the Robot That Didn't case, critics might interpret the failure of Have a Brain, in the 1992 Competition. robots to complete the task as a systemic failure of AI robotics itself (Konolige 1997). The con- et al. 1996; Mason 1993; Miller 1993; and Sar- test chairs have wrestled with these issues ever gent et al. 1997). since. The competition’s evolution reflects the Toward the end of the 1980s, the apparently organizers’ efforts to keep the bar at the right stalled progress of symbolic AI for robot con- level and provide relevant contest events that trol, contrasted with Brooks’s and Arkin’s suc- inspire and drive research. cessful reactive strategies, seemed to foreshad- For the first contest, Bonasso and Dean ow a dominance of behavior-based approaches designed a competition with progressively in the 1990s. In 1992, David Miller and his more challenging trials. The contest centered son, Jacob Milstein, made the point that sym- on a task where the robots were expected to bolic representation might not always be nec- explore a large arena containing easily detected essary with their stark robot SCARECROW (figure obstacles along with conspicuously marked 1). SCARECROW was controlled by a simple cir- objects to be located by the robots. Initial trials cuit of wires and relays (no computer con- were conducted behind closed doors before the troller). Although SCARECROW didn’t win the general public was admitted to the competi- competition, it did well, making some com- tion hall. Thus, the judges were able to assess petitors quite nervous. Miller relishes the the capabilities of the robots so they could tai- memory: “For at least five years after ‘92, I lor the final, public, trials for success. What a received e-mail and letters from researchers success it was—the 1992 competition was a big around the world asking for more details about hit that ensured a place for the competition in SCARECROW’s spatial representation and plan- subsequent conferences. ning system. I would tell them its spatial repre- The competition grew to include multiple sentation system was 100-percent accurate and events because some researchers found one full fidelity … the representation was quite task or the other a better match for their fund- large and was stored mostly off board the ed research. Since this time, the robot compe- robot.” tition has included about three problems every In fact, robots following reactive strategies year (sometimes four, sometimes two). Over often claimed the winner’s circle (for example, the three years spanning 1993 to 1995, some Balch [1998]; Balch et al. [1995]). However, in form of navigation task was maintained, along other years, robots that relied on representa- with a simple manipulation task. The complex- tion and planning stole top honors (for exam- ity of the competition tasks, however, was kept ple, Buhmann et al. [1995]). The end of a at about the same level as the first contest. 14 AI MAGAZINE Articles Another aspect of the contest that has Miller, that year’s organizer, “All the robots evolved over the years bears mentioning. The that competed in the events accomplished the types of participants have changed over the tasks” (Hinckle, Kortenkamp, and Miller 1996). years. In the early 1990s, a large portion of the The successes of 1995 were enabled by corre- competitors came from research universities sponding research progress in the technology such as Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), areas the contest was pushing, including the Stanford University, Georgia Institute of Tech- overcoming of ultrasonic sensor noise for nav- nology, and the Massachusetts Institute of igation, the building of maps from noisy range Technology. The entries from these universities sensors, real-time vision, and planning in a often reflected the research of Ph.D. students more or less structured environment. and their advisers. In the mid to late 1990s, the The year 1996 marked a move to more mix of participants evolved to include a larger dynamic and unstructured tasks (Kortenkamp, proportion of undergraduates from a broader Nourbakhsh, and Hinkle 1997). The Tennis selection of universities, including teaching Court Cleanup task required robots to collect colleges such as Swarthmore. This trend prob- numerous tennis balls strewn about the arena ably reflects the pervasiveness and accessibility and deposit them in a bin. The problem was of AI and robotics technologies. Recently, with further complicated by the addition of battery- the addition of new events, we are seeing powered, quickly moving “squiggle balls” that research universities return to the competition. also had to be captured and delivered to a bin. “Where is the science?”—Tom Dean, 1994 One of the competitors, M1 from Newton Labs (figure 2), was able to chase a squiggle ball “The science is what you do [back at the down and capture it. This competition was … the event lab but] throw away the night before the challenging and visually appealing as well. It competition.”—Jim Firby, 1994 also brought the reactive versus deliberative was cast “in The robots were providing an exciting show, control debate to the fore; of the two top the spirit of but the researchers were still struggling to build entries, M1 from Newton Labs was purely reac- trying to robust systems that would convincingly com- tive, and JEEVES from CMU used symbolic rea- plete the competition tasks (Simmons 1995). soning. develop as According to Tom Dean, one consequence of Others outside the community were taking animate, promoting such competitions, and their collo- note of the competition’s success. Pete Bonasso cation with scientific conferences, is that the recalls, “Some of my favorite recollections were responsive, organizers and participants were constantly seeing people like Ian Horswill, Maja Mataric, and asked to explain the science under the hood, and Jon Connell having to patiently explain to by peers, fellow conference attendees, the pow- CNN and other press reps that there really was intelligent ers that sponsor such events (Defense Ad- no one behind the curtain.”4 In 1996, the PBS robot vanced Research Projects Agency, National Sci- television show Scientific American Frontiers ence Foundation, National Aeronautics and asked if it could visit and tape the contest.
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