Results of the European Land Robot Trial and Their Usability for Benchmarking Outdoor Robot Systems

It is generally a problematic task to compare different approaches and methods in the field of outdoor robotics [1]. In the majority of cases, results are reported only for a specific robotic system. All tasks are solved in a static and often specially defined environment, making it hard to compare the outcome with results from other research groups, other approaches, and other robots. The commonly used means of “proof by video” or “proof by (one) example” are insufficient for obvious reasons. As one possible solution, robot competitions can be a benchmark for real robot systems [2].

Authors and Affiliations

1. Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics (FKIE), Wachtberg, Germany

   Frank E. Schneider & Dennis Wildermuth

Editors and Affiliations

1. Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, The University of Sheffield, Mappin Street, S1 3JD, Sheffield, UK

   Roderich Groß

2. Materials and Engineering Research Institute, Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, Horward Street, S1 1WB, Sheffield, UK

   Lyuba Alboul  & Jacques Penders  & 

3. Department of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), University of Bristol and the West of England, Bristol Business Park, BS16 1QD, Bistol, UK

   Chris Melhuish

4. Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, Exhibition Road, SW7 2BT, London, UK

   Mark Witkowski

5. Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield, Wstern Bank, S10 2TN, Sheffield, UK

   Tony J. Prescott

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