The League of Robot Runners Competition

[Shao-Hung Chan]

Hi everyone,

I am Shao-Hung Chan from Dr. Sven Koenig's group at the University of Southern California. We are organizing a competition called The League of Robot Runners, which is a competition that is related to the Multi-Agent Path Finding problem, and we would like to advertise it to you:

The League of Robot Runners Competition

1. Introduction

A team of robots works together to complete errands. They fulfill orders, sort mail, and navigate all tricky grid environments. YOUR JOB is to compute collision-free paths for the team. Get the robots to where they’re going as efficiently as possible so they complete as many errands as possible. Use any tool you like: ML, RL, OR, Heuristic Search. Anything goes if you think hard enough. But don’t think too long; the clock is always ticking!

Simplified versions of such problems appear in the research literature under the name Multi-Agent Path Finding, Multi-Robot Path Planning, and many others. In this competition, we bridge the gap between academia and industry by identifying the core combinatorial challenges that make these problems difficult to solve in practice. Participation is open to individuals and teams of individuals from any discipline and background and from any geographic location. Participating in the competition means not only demonstrating your skills against the best in the field but also contributing to the establishment of new benchmarks and algorithmic baselines. You'll have the chance to make a tangible impact on the progression of the research field, with the possibility of your innovative solutions being adopted by the wider community. Moreover, your involvement will help increase attention to this critical problem and contribute to the growth of our community.

2. Financial prizes are available for distinguished performance!

• Best overall: 5,000 USD

• Fast Mover:  2,500 USD

• Line Honor:  2,500 USD

Other notable performances (2nd, 3rd place in each category) will be recognized with a certificate. Register and submit your implementation before the submission deadline to be eligible! To lower participation costs, we also have a limited number of training awards. Distributed according to merit, these awards come in the form of AWS credits (up to $1000 USD), which can be used to help with the offline development of computational models.

3. Important dates

• Warm-up round: July 13 - August 18
• Main round: August 19 - November 30
• Results Announcement: December 20
  

For more information, please visit our website: https://www.leagueofrobotrunners.org/ or join our discord channel: https://discord.gg/CEYT4g4raR!

Thank you, and I hope to see you in the competition!