Seoul National University and Pusan National University Joint Team 'TidyBoy' Wins Two Awards at the World's Largest AI Robot Competition

France Bordeaux 2,000 Participants from 45 Countries Attending

A joint team from Pusan National University and Seoul National University won two championships at the world's largest artificial intelligence robot competition.

The Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (Director Son Woong-hee) announced that the joint robot team "Tidyboy" from Pusan National University and Seoul National University, participating in the Robot-based Innovation Leading Professional Training Project, competed in the Open Platform League (OPL) and Domestic Platform League (DSPL) of the home service category (RoboCup@Home) at the international AI robot competition "RoboCup 2023" held in Bordeaux, France, and took first place in both leagues worldwide.

"RoboCup" is the world's oldest and largest AI robot competition, established in 1996. This year's competition was held from the 4th to the 10th in Bordeaux, France, with 2,500 participants from 45 countries worldwide competing with over 2,000 robots in various categories such as robot soccer, home service, industrial automation, and disaster relief.

The 'Tidy Boy' team, a joint team from Pusan National University and Seoul National University, is posing for a commemorative photo holding a robot.

Among these, the "home service" category is a discipline that tests the technology of service robots that assist humans in home environments. This category evaluates robots' abilities to intelligently recognize objects and environments, communicate with humans through voice and gestures, autonomously navigate indoor spaces, and manipulate objects with robotic arms. Excellent skills in both artificial intelligence and robotics are required for this.

This year, a record 33 teams participated in the home service category, including prestigious international university teams such as the University of Tokyo from Japan, the University of Oxford from the UK, the University of Bonn from Germany, and Eindhoven University of Technology from the Netherlands, resulting in fierce competition.

The "Tidyboy" team is a joint team of Pusan National University and Seoul National University, composed of students from Professor Seungjun Lee's laboratory in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Pusan National University and Professor Byungtak Jang's laboratory in the Department of Computer Engineering at Seoul National University. They competed in two leagues: DSPL, which uses commercial robots, and OPL, which uses self-developed robots.

"Tidyboy" participated in the OPL league using "Lucio," a robot developed independently by Pusan National University, demonstrating excellent object recognition, fast autonomous navigation, precise robotic arm manipulation, and smooth communication with humans, flawlessly completing all nine assigned tasks without error.

The team dominated the "Nimbro" team from the University of Bonn, Germany, with more than twice the score to claim the final championship. The University of Bonn team is an outstanding team that won the 2022 international robot competition "ANA Avatar XPRIZE," earning a prize of 5 million dollars.

Additionally, in the DSPL league, which uses commercial service robots manufactured by Toyota, the team secured the final championship by surpassing the "Hibikino-Musashi" team?a joint team from Kyushu Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu City University, and Waseda University in Japan?and the University of Tokyo's "Trail" team, both of which have won multiple international robot competitions, based on their high-level autonomous perception technology.

The "Tidyboy" team won first place in the DSPL league of the RoboCup home service category in 2021 and participated again in the same league in 2022 but unfortunately finished as runner-up due to a robot malfunction.

Taewoong Kang, a student who led the development of the "Lucio" robot at Pusan National University, said, "I am very pleased to have won the championship by dominating the entire league with a robot developed independently at Pusan National University."

Professor Seungjun Lee of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Pusan National University, who supervised the team, said, "Winning both leagues is unprecedented in the history of the competition and once again proves that Korean teams' AI robot technology is world-class. We hope to contribute to the upcoming widespread adoption of home service robots."

Son Woong-hee, Director of the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement, said, "The recent consecutive successes of domestic robot talents, including the double championship at the international AI robot competition RoboCup and the world quadruped walking Olympics, demonstrate the excellence of Korea's robot industry and technology. We will continue to strive to nurture talents who will lead the future global robot industry."

Since 2019, the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement has been promoting the "Robot-based Innovation Leading Professional Training Project" to foster the robot industry. In collaboration with Pusan National University (Robot Technology Research Center), Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Yeungnam University, Chonnam National University, and Chungnam National University, it supports the training of integrated master's and doctoral talents equipped with both engineering knowledge in robotics and practical corporate experience.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.