News RoboCup 2019: hftm.team.solidus to compete in Sydney

This year, the students of the Higher College of Technology Mittelland (hftm) from Biel, Switzerland, will once again compete in the RoboCup with their robotics team. The world championships of intelligent robots will take place from July 2 to 8 in Sydney, Australia.

During the RoboCup 2019, teams from approximately 35 countries will compete in the five main disciplines: football, rescue robots, industry, junior, and logistics. In the logistics discipline, hftm.team.solidus from Switzerland has been one of the top contenders for several years. In 2014 (in Brazil) and 2017 (in Japan), the team finished in third place, and in 2015 (in China) and 2016 (in Germany) they even won the silver medal. In 2018 they finished fifth in Montreal (Canada).

The conditions of the competition in the logistics discipline simulate a manufacturing environment that is as close as possible to real life. One of the tasks is to program three robots before the competition begins, in order to make them work together to manufacture special products. The robots have to plan, execute, and optimize the production process. The aim is for the robots to deliver a finished product. Prior to the competition, the teams are permitted to modify their robots with sensors or processors and to adapt the programming. During the 20-minute competition sequence, the robots must work completely autonomously and may not be remotely controlled.

The members of hftm.team.solidus change every year and always consists of second-year students of the full-time System Engineering course of the hftm. Bystronic has been the team’s main sponsor since 2015. We wish the hftm.team.solidus every success at the RoboCup 2019 and will follow their progress closely.