Robothon® – The Grand Challenge enters second round

International teams, enthusiastic participants, amazed judges: The premiere of Robothon® – The Grand Challenge 2021 was a resounding success and will enter its next round at automatica 2022. The name of this collaborative software and hardware development competition held within the framework of munich_i is derived from the terms robot and marathon, and addresses robotics fans worldwide. In 2022, the participating teams will once again be confronted with a challenge that has so far remained unsolved – the so-called Grand Challenge. Those who get involved here use state-of-the-art methods to demonstrate the greatest performance possible today. In brief: It's going to be exciting.

The Robothon® 2022 will once again address the industry's most complex unsolved challenges in the fight against environmental pollution: the disassembly and separation of electronic waste. Automated dismantling and separation would enable manufacturers to make their recycling processes much more efficient and sustainable. How this can be accomplished? A strategy must be developed that enables a robot to autonomously recognize, grasp and manipulate loose components in a new production environment.

Teams use their own robot platforms to solve the task. In the run-up to the event, they receive a task board specifically modified for the 2022 challenge. At the time of the official start in late April, the specific task with five challenging levels will be distributed along with the score card.

The participants will then have four weeks to develop solutions based on an AI and robotics platform before they have to demonstrate their results online on May 31 and June 1, 2022. In addition to the concrete solution approach, the execution of the tasks and the speed will also be evaluated. The panel of judges includes high-profile AI and robotics experts as well as industry representatives who will gather on June 21 within the framework of munich_i to award the best teams. For their solutions, their commitment, and their aspiration to actively tackle the problems of our time.