The Mobile Manipulation Hackathon was held in late 2018 during the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) to showcase the latest applications of wheeled robotic manipulators. The challenge had an open format, where teams developed an application using simulation tools and integrated it into a robotic platform. This article presents the competition and analyzes the results, with information gathered during the event and from a survey circulated among the finalist teams. We provide an overview of the mobile manipulation field, identify key areas required for further development to facilitate the implementation of mobile manipulators in real applications, and discuss ideas about how to structure future hackathon-style competitions to enhance their impact on the scientific and industrial communities.
Paper
Roa, M.A., Dogar, M.R., Pages, J., Vivas, C., Morales, A., Correll, N., Gorner, M., Rosell, J., Foix, S., Memmesheimer, R. and Ferro, F., 2021. Mobile Manipulation Hackathon: Moving into real world applications. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 28(2), pp.112-124.