RAS New Quadruped Robot Challenges: Pushing the Boundaries of Robotics Research and Development [Competitions]

Competitions have been a regular feature at almost every ICRA and IROS conference. So far, the organization of competitions has been entirely up to the conference organizing committee (OC). The OC usually issues a call for competition proposals; collects them; and decides which competitions will be hosted based on the conference site and budget conditions. Many big companies, such as Amazon, Airbus, and DJI, have successfully organized competitions at ICRA and IROS, some of which have continued for multiple years and have driven technological advances in robotics. The OC may also organize competitions based on the interests of its financial supporters. Many such competitions have been one-time events, but the Autonomous Drone Racing competition, which ran for four years until it was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, was a successful testbed for vision-based autonomous navigation of quadcopters and attracted participation from many top-tier research teams.