Universität Bonn: Autonomous Intelligent Systems GroupAutonomous Intelligent Systems: ANA Avatar XPRIZE Team NimbRo

Publications

Raphael Memmesheimer, Christian Lenz, Max Schwarz, Michael Schreiber, and Sven Behnke:
Self-Centering 3-DOF Feet Controller for Hands-Free Locomotion Control in Telepresence and Virtual Reality
In Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Telepresence (Telepresence), Pasadena, CA, USA, November 2024.

Max Schwarz, Christian Lenz, Raphael Memmesheimer, Bastian Pätzold, Andre Rochow, Michael Schreiber, and Sven Behnke:
Robust Immersive Telepresence and Mobile Telemanipulation: NimbRo wins ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals
In Proceedings of IEEE-RAS 22nd International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), Austin, USA, December 2023.
Finalist for Best Oral Paper Award. [Video]

Christian Lenz, Max Schwarz, Andre Rochow, Bastian Pätzold, Raphael Memmesheimer, Michael Schreiber, and Sven Behnke:
NimbRo wins ANA Avatar XPRIZE Immersive Telepresence Competition: Human-Centric Evaluation and Lessons Learned
International Journal of Social Robotics (SORO), Springer, published online October 2023.

Sven Behnke, Julie Adams, and David Locke:
The $10 Million ANA Avatar XPRIZE Competition Advanced Immersive Telepresence Systems
Accepted for IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, to appear 2023.
[Extended version arXiv:2308.07878]

Max Schwarz, Christian Lenz, Raphael Memmesheimer, Bastian Pätzold, Andre Rochow, Michael Schreiber, Sven Behnke:
Robust Immersive Telepresence and Mobile Telemanipulation: NimbRo wins ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals
Preprint arXiv:2303.03297, March 2023.

ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals in Long Beach, CA, November 2022

5.11.2022
Our team NimbRo won the ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals.
In the Day 2 testing run, the Operator Judge solved through our Avatar System all ten tasks of this competition in only 5:50 min. We received also all five points for telepresence quality, resulting in a perfect score of 15/15 points. The prize money is 5M US$. [Press release]

Winning Team NimbRo with Avatar robot NimbRo Avatar team and robot Award ceremony  ANA Avatar XPRIZE Final ranking

[NimbRo_Avatar_Finals_Day_2_2022_11_05.mp4]

Operator station Avatar robot waiting for test run Avatar robot driving fast Grasping the drill

NimbRo is the robot competition team of the Autonomous Intelligent Systems lab of University of Bonn, Germany. 

The lab is part of the Computer Science Institute VI – Intelligent Systems and Robotics, which is headed by Prof. Dr. Sven Behnke.

4.11.2022
On the first day of the Finals Testing, we had the second to last slot. The Operator Judge solved through our Avatar system all ten tasks in 8:15 minutes.
We also received full scores from the Operator and Recipient Judges for telepresence quality.
With a score of 15/15, our team NimbRo is leading. Tomorrow, the 12 best teams get a chance to improve their score.   

Operator room Operator station Operator Judge and some team members
NimbRo Avatar robot ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals Arena Drill task

[NimbRo_Avatar_Finals_Day_1_2022_11_04.mp4]

3.11.2022
Our Avatar system is operational in our Team Garage. We practice operator training. In the evening, our Avatar was for the first time tested in the arena of the ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals. Despite WiFi issues, the Operator Judge solved through our Avatar System all ten tasks of this competition. This qualifies our team NimbRo for the Finals Test tomorrow.

[NimbRo_Avatar_Finals_Qualification_2022_11_03_m.mp4]

Operator station All Avatar robots Finals Qualification: All ten tasks solved

2.11.2022
We assemble the Avatar robot and the Operator Station. Teams had a first look at the arena. Our robot went to the photo shooting.

Avatar hand Operator Station computers NimbRo Avatar robot NimbRo Avatar robot and team

1.11.2022
Our team arrived at the ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals, which take place in Long Beach, CA, USA.

Team NimbRo at the ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals Operator station assembly Computer assembly Robot assembly

ANA Avatar XPRIZE Semifinals in Miami, FL, September 2021

Team NimbRo @ Avatar Xprize Challenge Semifinals in Miami NimbRo Avatar Robot Helps Recipient into Jacket Pouring milk

[NimbRo_Avatar_Semifinals_Run2.mp4]

21.10.2021
Our team NimbRo came in first in the ANA Avatar XPRIZE Semifinals. The jury gave our test runs an almost perfect score of 99/100 points.
[Press release]

18.9.2021
The second and last testing day at the ANA Avatar Xprize Challenge Semifinals also went very well. We may have received even more points than yesterday.

NimbRo Avatar Operator Station NimbRo Avatar Robot NimbRo Avatar Robot - Recipient Interaction NimbRo Avatar Robot Puzzle

[NimbRo_Avatar_Operator_Training.mp4]

17.9.2021
The first testing day went very well. The judges solved all tasks in the three test scenarios. They were pleased with the immersion in the remote scene as well as the presence of the remote operator and consequently awarded our team an almost perfect score.

Judge in Operator Station Operator Room crew Operator present in Avatar robot

16.9.2021
We are participating in the ANA Avatar Xprize Challenge Semifinals in Miami, Florida.
Our Avatar system arrived and is operational.

NimbRo Avatar robot Team NimbRo

2.7.2021
We submitted our Semifinals Team Video to XPRIZE.

[NimbRo_Avatar_Semifinals_Team_Video.mp4]

5.4.2021
Our team NimbRo has been selected as Semifinalist for the ANA AVATAR XPRIZE Challenge.

8.1.2020
Our team NimbRo is one of the qualified teams selected to participate at the ANA AVATAR XPRIZE Challenge.

29.9.2019
NimbRo registered for the ANA AVATAR XPRIZE Challenge.

Publications

Max Schwarz, Christian Lenz, Raphael Memmesheimer, Bastian Pätzold, Andre Rochow, Michael Schreiber, Sven Behnke:
Robust Immersive Telepresence and Mobile Telemanipulation: NimbRo wins ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals
Preprint arXiv:2303.03297, March 2023.

Christian Lenz and Sven Behnke:
Bimanual Telemanipulation with Force and Haptic Feedback trough an Anthropomorphic Avatar System
Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 161(2):104338, Elsevier, March 2023.

Andre Rochow, Max Schwarz, Michael Schreiber, and Sven Behnke:
VR Facial Animation for Immersive Telepresence Avatars
In Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Kyoto, Japan, October 2022.
[Videos]

Max Schwarz, Christian Lenz, Andre Rochow, Michael Schreiber and Sven Behnke:
NimbRo Avatar: Interactive Immersive Telepresence with Force-Feedback Telemanipulation
Accepted for IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Prague, Czech Republic, September 2021.
[Video]

Christian Lenz and Sven Behnke:
Bimanual Telemanipulation with Force and Haptic Feedback and Predictive Limit Avoidance
In Proceedings of 10th European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR), Bonn, Germany, September 2021.
[Video]

Max Schwarz and Sven Behnke:
Low-Latency Immersive 6D Televisualization with Spherical Rendering
In Proceedings of IEEE-RAS 20th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), Munich, July 2021.
Finalist for Best Oral Paper Award
[Video]

Earlier Competitions and Challenges

NimbRo has extensive experience and outstanding success with robotics competitions and challenges:

These successes are based on contributions to science that are reflected in a large number of publications. Main research areas are computer vision, mapping and localization, locomotion and manipulation planning, and deep learning. 

NimbRo has developed intuitive robotic telepresence systems for domestic service, space exploration, and disaster response. 

Centauro robot at Kerntechnische Hilfsdienst GmbH  Momaro taking a soil sample at DLR SpaceBot Camp 2015  Momaro cutting at the DARPA Robotics Challenge  Cognitive Service Robot Cosero


Related Publications

Tobias Klamt, Diego Rodriguez, Lorenzo Baccelliere, Xi Chen, Domenico Chiaradia, Torben Cichon, Massimiliano Gabardi, Paolo Guria, Karl Holmquist, Malgorzata Kamedula, Hakan Karaoguz, Navvab Kashiri, Arturo Laurenzi, Christian Lenz, Daniele Leonardis, Enrico Mingo, Luca Muratore, Dmytro Pavlichenko, Francesco Porcini, Zeyu Ren, Fabian Schilling, Max Schwarz, Massimiliano Solazzi, Michael Felsberg, Antonio Frisoli, Michael Gustmann, Patric Jensfelt, Klas Nordberg, Juergen Rossmann, Uwe Suess, Nikos Tsagarakis, and Sven Behnke:
Flexible Disaster Response of Tomorrow - Final Presentation and Evaluation of the CENTAURO System
IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, Special Issue on Humanoid Robot Applications in Real World Scenarios, December 2019.
[Video]

Tobias Klamt, Max Schwarz, Christian Lenz, Lorenzo Baccelliere, Domenico Buongiorno, Torben Cichon, Antonio DiGuardo, David Droeschel, Massimiliano Gabardi, Malgorzata Kamedula, Navvab Kashiri, Arturo Laurenzi, Daniele Leonardis, Luca Muratore, Dmytro Pavlichenko, Arul S. Periyasamy, Diego Rodriguez, Massimiliano Solazzi, Antonio Frisoli, Michael Gustmann, Jürgen Roßmann, Uwe Süss, Nikos G. Tsagarakis, and Sven Behnke:
Remote mobile manipulation with the Centauro robot: Full‐body telepresence and autonomous operator assistance
Journal of Field Robotics (JFR), Wiley, 2019.
[Video]

Max Schwarz, Tobias Rodehutskors, David Droeschel, Marius Beul, Michael Schreiber, Nikita Araslanov, Ivan Ivanov, Christian Lenz, Jan Razlaw, Sebastian Schüller, David Schwarz, Angeliki Topalidou-Kyniazopoulou, and Sven Behnke:
NimbRo Rescue: Solving Disaster-Response Tasks through Mobile Manipulation Robot Momaro
Journal of Field Robotics (JFR) 34(2):400–425, 2017.

Max Schwarz, Marius Beul, David Droeschel, Sebastian Schüller, Arul Selvam Periyasamy, Christian Lenz, Michael Schreiber, and Sven Behnke:
Supervised Autonomy for Exploration and Mobile Manipulation in Rough Terrain with a Centaur-like Robot
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, section Humanoid Robotics, vol. 3, article 57, October 2016.

Jörg Stückler, Max Schwarz, and Sven Behnke:
Mobile Manipulation, Tool Use, and Intuitive Interaction for Cognitive Service Robot Cosero
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, section Humanoid Robotics, vol. 3, November 2016.

Tobias Rodehutskors, Max Schwarz, and Sven Behnke:
Intuitive Bimanual Telemanipulation under Communication Restrictions by Immersive 3D Visualization and Motion Tracking

In Proceedings of IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), Seoul, Korea, November 2015.

Max Schwarz, Jörg Stückler, and Sven Behnke:
Mobile Teleoperation Interfaces with Adjustable Autonomy for Personal Service Robots
In Proceedings of the 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), pp. 288-289, Bielefeld, Germany, 2014.

Sebastian Muszynski, Jörg Stückler, and Sven Behnke:
Adjustable Autonomy for Mobile Teleoperation of Personal Service Robots
In Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), Paris, France, September 2012.

                    Universität Bonn, Institute for Computer Science, Departments: I, II, III, IV, V, VI; Team NimbRo; Robotics in Bonn