The leagues in RoboCupIndustrial were introduced in 2012, when the term Industry 4.0 was not yet known. The competitions address largely unsolved research questions for future production processes that underlie logistical processes and work processes. Both leagues address different milestones of future production processes, but have many overlaps in objectives. Smart Factory: This is the vision of production technology. Factories are no longer viewed holistically, but are broken down into small work processes and continuously optimized using artificial intelligence.
The League aims to promote research and development that enables the use of innovative mobile robots equipped with advanced manipulators and sensors for current and future industrial applications where robots collaborate with human workers on complex tasks. Targeted tasks range from manufacturing, automation and parts handling to general logistics.
This league is inspired by the industrial scenario of a smart factory, where a series of machines provide manufacturing services to refine, assemble or modify a workpiece, ultimately leading to a final product.In this new paradigm, the factory offers a range of production technologies instead of production types. These can then be recombined for each specific order. The idea is to enable cost-efficient production even for products with small quantities or high variance. Such a factory requires more flexible logistics, where robots are a natural choice.The league's research questions focus on planning and scheduling at the task level, automation in an industrial production process and the integration of multi-robot systems.