Sensor Information Processing in Robot Competitions and Real World Robotic Challenges.

In this paper, we present an overview of technical approaches and algorithms used by university researchers in several recent international robot competitions and challenges, which include RoboCupRescue, Tsukuba Challenge, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Urban Challenge, and Multi Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge. All robot systems display the latest hardware and software modules needed for accurate localization, navigation, and exploration in difficult environments. In each case, key robotic research problems addressed by each challenge are presented, and a representative implementation of a robot system is provided. Finally, individual results from the fielded robots are presented, and opportunities for future work are discussed. (C) 2012 Taylor & Francis and The Robotics Society of Japan