1st RAMI Physical Campaign

for Marine Robots 2022, 10-15 July

The first Robotics for Asset Maintenance and Inspection (RAMI) Marine Robots competition was held at the NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) in La Spezia, Italy, 10 ‒ 15 July 2022. The competition did challenge the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) of participant teams to accomplish Inspection & Maintenance tasks set in the CMRE protected seawater basin. AUVs required perception, manipulation, adaptive mission planning and autonomous navigation skills to be successful.

The RAMI competition is organized in the framework of the METRICS project (Metrological Evaluation and Testing of Robots in International Competitions) and aims at addressing Inspection & Maintenance tasks achieved by aerial and underwater robots in risky and/or hostile environments where human intervention is challenging or impossible, where direct link with an operator could not be guaranteed and where autonomous decisions are necessary to reduce operational time of the inspection tasks and ensure repeatability while maintaining an appropriate safety level for the mission. The evaluation process of RAMI competitions mainly involves tasks related to autonomous navigation, data acquisition, detection, classification and autonomous decision-making for inspection purposes. Since aerial and underwater domains are very different, both domains will be evaluated separately in two different tracks.

The RAMI Marine Robots competition builds on the experience of the European Robotics League (ERL) Emergency competitions. The European Robotics League is an innovative concept for robot competitions which stems from its predecessors, the euRathlon and RoCKIn competitions, and focuses on tasks that emergency response robots execute in a realistic emergency environment. For more information about ERL, please visit https://eu-robotics.net/robotics_league/.

The RAMI Physical Campaign for Marine Robots 2022 has also been an ERL Emergency Local Tournament on the ERL Emergency Robots (ERL-ER) Season 2021-2022.

Competition

The competition was held in the CMRE seawater basin, offering the competitors a realistic setting.

Teams were ranked on three different task benchmarks (TBMs) and three functionality benchmarks (FBMs).

The TBMs are:

  • TBM-1: Pipeline area inspection.
    • The AUV has to reach through autonomous navigation the area where the damage has been reported. Once in the area, the robot has first to assess the entity of the oil leak (represented by coloured buoys to be mapped) and then inspect the pipeline assembly structure to localize and quantify the damage on a pipe (a red marker).
  • TBM-2: Intervention on the pipeline structure.
    • The robot first has to assess the entity of the damage with direct measurements on the pipes (i.e. staying in touch with one pipe for some time). Then it has to reach the manipulation console, recognizing it through the detection of a black number over a red background. Finally, it has to close the valve present on the console and grab a pole-ring and bring that on the surface.
  • TBM-3: Complete I&M mission at the plant.
    • TBM-3 combines TBM-1 and TBM-2 and proposes a complete I&M mission at the plant.

Teams did use data collected during the TBMs to produce outputs to be evaluated for three FBMs:

  • FBM-1: mapping the area.
    • The robot has to map the position of the coloured buoys.
  • FBM-2: object recognition.
    • The robot has to recognize and identify the coloured buoys (position and colour).
  • FBM-3: shape recognition.
    • The robot has to identify the black colour over the red background located at the manipulation console and its dimensions.

1 underwater robot is needed for each TBM. The robot needs to be capable of navigating in unstructured environments, sense the environment with optical and acoustic sensors (for underwater) and manipulate valves and other objects.

The robot is required to work autonomously in all the tasks, however, it can be tele-operated during tasks involving manipulation. The scoring will reflect the level of autonomy, the higher level of autonomy, the higher the score

Rules

Results

IEEE OES platinum sponsor provided awards and travel support to the teams.

TBM-1: Pipeline area inspection

Rank

 Team A P
1st AUV Team Tomkyle 12 0
2nd UNIFI Robotics Team 11 0
TBM-2: Intervention on the pipeline structure
Rank Team A P
1st AUV Team Tomkyle 17 0
1st UNIFI Robotics Team 17 0
3rd Black Pearl 4 0
TBM-3: Complete mission at the plant
Rank Team A P
1st UNIFI Robotics Team 13 0
2nd AUV Team Tomkyle 10 0
3rd Black Pearl 5 0

 

Special awards (chosen by the Technical Committee)

Best presentation (teams were asked to give a presentation on their robot and team): AUV Team Tomkyle

Best team SAUC-E award (best results on the rankings of the three TBMs – in case of draw the award is given to the team with the best presentation): AUV Team Tomkyle

Best rookie team: Black Pearl (student voucher from Breaking the Surface sponsor)

Persistence award: OUBOT (altimeter from Blue Robotics sponsor)

Student vouchers from Breaking the Surface sponsor were given to AUV Team Tomkyle and UNIFI Robotics Team.

Sponsors

Important dates

  • 30 May 2022 - Deadline for application Part 1

  • 10 June 2022 - Deadline for application Part 2

  • 20 June 2022 - Qualification announcement

  • 10 July 2022 - Competition begins

  • 15 July 2022 - Competition ends

Due to the current situation, dates and information regarding the competition may change.

Organization

NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE)

Place and time

Seawater water basin at CMRE, La Spezia, Italy

10-15 July 2022

Organising committee

Chair

Dr Gabriele Ferri (CMRE, Italy)

Co-chairs

Alessandro Faggiani (CMRE, Italy)

Dr Tommaso Fabbri (CMRE, Italy)

Qualified teams

  • AUV Team TomKyle (University of Applied Sciences Kiel, Germany)
  • Black Pearl (Jacobs University and University of Pisa, Germany - Italy)
  • OUBOT (Obuda University, Hungary)
  • UNIFI Robotics Team (University of Florence, Italy)

Platinum sponsor

Silver sponsor

Breaking the Surface conference will provide three free student registrations for the winner team, and one for the second team in the ranking.

Bronze sponsor

Blue Robotics will provide one Ping Sonar Altimeter and Echosounder as a special award.