[2nd CFP] League of Robot Runners, 2026 Edition! 🏁📦

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Chen Zhe

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Jun 10, 2026, 2:45:34 AM (yesterday) Jun 10
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The League of Robot Runners (LoRR, www.leagueofrobotrunners.org) is a global competition series tackling one of the hardest problems in logistics automation: coordinating large teams of robots under real-world uncertainty. 

Sponsored by Amazon Robotics 📦 and co-hosted with AAMAS 2026 🎓, LoRR bridges academia and industry by focusing on core combinatorial challenges in multi-robot coordination. Related formulations appear in the literature as Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF), Multi-Robot Path Planning (MRPP), and multi-agent coordination. 🗺️🤖

In LoRR, simulated robots operate in dynamic logistics environments and must continuously complete incoming tasks. 🏭 Depending on the track, participants design task schedulers, path planners, and execution policies that remain robust under stochastic delays. ⏱️ The goal is to complete as many tasks as possible before time runs out! ⏳🏆

Participation is open to teams and individuals worldwide. 🌍 We welcome all technical approaches, including:

  • 🧠 AI planning and algorithm design

  • 🔍 Combinatorial search and optimization

  • 💻 Machine learning and reinforcement learning

  • 🧮 Mathematical programming and operations research

  • 🛡️ Robust/stochastic optimization and control

  • ⚙️ Hybrid and domain-specific methods

✨ New for 2026: Uncertainty-Aware Robot Coordination 🌩️

Building on the 2024/5 season (1,513 submissions from 50 teams! 🎉), the 2026 edition introduces explicit execution uncertainty through delay probabilities. 🎲 Robots may fail to execute planned moves on time due to simulated mechanical 🔧 issues or communication 📡 delays. Success now depends not only on path quality but also on robust execution policies that keep fleets efficient amid disruptions. 🚀

🏆 Competition Tracks and Prizes 💰

🕹️ Execution Track

  • We provide the task scheduler and path planner.

  • You design an execution policy that handles delays.

  • 🥇 First Prize: USD 2,500

  • 🥈 Second Prize: USD 500

  • 🏅 Third Prize: Distinguished Performance Award

📋 Task Scheduling Track

  • You assign tasks to robots.

  • We provide the path planner and execution policy.

  • Your scheduler must account for execution uncertainty.

  • 🥇 First Prize: USD 2,500

  • 🥈 Second Prize: USD 500

  • 🏅 Third Prize: Distinguished Performance Award

👑 Combined Track

  • You assign tasks, plan paths, and control execution.

  • Full control in the most challenging stochastic setting.

  • 🏆 First Prize (Grand Prize): USD 5,000

  • 🥈 Second Prize: USD 1,000

  • 🥉 Third Prize: USD 500

🎁 Additional Awards

  • 🎓 AAMAS Prize (Combined Track): USD 1,000 for the top combined-track entry submitted by May 22, 2026 (AOE, UTC-12)

  • 🏎️ Line Honours Prize: USD 1,000 for the team with the largest number of best-known solutions at competition end

  • 📜 Certificates for other notable performances

💻 Submission Process 🚀

Participants register on the LoRR platform and submit solvers through the official evaluation pipeline. Submissions are automatically built and evaluated, with progress tracked on the live leaderboard. 📊 Submissions are accepted throughout the competition window.

We provide starter code, documentation, examples, validators, and visualization tools. 🛠️ After the competition, top submissions and problem instances will be open-sourced for community use. 🤝

🧰 Tools and Resources

📦 Start-Kit v3.1.0: 

  • Full support for the new Execution component and runtime delay generation. 

  • Added configurable action counters and multistep planner communication. Stability, validation, and usability improvements for main round submissions, plus new main-round example instances.

👁️ PlanViz v3.1.0: 

  • The visualizer fully supports 2026 tick-based simulation. 

  • We improved rendering performance for massive simulations. 🖥️✨

📅 Important Dates (AOE, UTC-12) ⏰

  • Jan 2026: Competition announcement 📣

  • 18 Mar 2026: Start-Kit release and test round opens 🔓

  • 14 Apr 2026: Main round begins 🟢

  • 22 Jul 2026: Competition finish line 🏁

  • 7 Aug 2026: All tracks' results announcement 🏆

🧑‍🏫 Competition Chairs 👩‍🏫

  • Daniel Harabor (Monash University)

  • Sven Koenig (University of California, Irvine)

  • Cathy Wu (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Jingjin Yu (Rutgers University)

🔗 Links:

We look forward to your participation in LoRR 2026! 🤖


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