Workshop and Competition on Multi-Robot Perception and Navigation Challenges in Logistics and Inspection Tasks

In the pursuit of sustainable development, the efficient management of logistics and the reliable inspection of critical infrastructure are paramount. Multi-robot systems offer promising solutions to address these challenges by enhancing operational efficiency, reducing environmental impact, and ensuring the safety and reliability of essential infrastructure. However, deploying robotic systems in groups poses challenges such as cost-effective perception implementation, dealing with measurement uncertainties, real-time dynamic planning, and interactions with other agents. Developing such multi-robot perception and navigation systems is often time- and resource-demanding, rendering this field less explored by the majority of the academic community. We identify a significant domain gap in this area that has yet to be fulfilled. Through collaborative learning, hands-on challenges, and discussions on real-world applications, participants will gain valuable insights and tools to drive innovation in robotics, ultimately contributing to creating more sustainable and resilient societies. We anticipate that user-friendly, cost-effective simulation evaluation environments will enhance access to exploration, planning, and control research and accelerate progress through quantitative comparisons to existing benchmarks.