<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-align:center;direction:ltr"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Call for Participation</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" dir="LTR" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-align:center;direction:ltr"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">RoboCup 201</span></b><span dir="RTL"></span><b><span lang="FA" dir="RTL" style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span dir="RTL"></span>3</span></b><span dir="LTR"></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span dir="LTR"></span> Rescue Simulation League</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" dir="LTR" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-align:center;direction:ltr"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Agent, Infrastructure and</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" dir="LTR" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-align:center;direction:ltr"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Multi-Agent Challenge Competitions</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" dir="LTR" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-align:center;direction:ltr"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">June </span></b><span dir="RTL"></span><b><span lang="FA" dir="RTL" style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span dir="RTL"></span>24</span></b><span dir="LTR"></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span dir="LTR"></span>-30, 2013 (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" dir="LTR" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-align:center;direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a href="http://www.robocup2013.org" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">www.robocup2013.org</a></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The RoboCup Rescue Agent Simulation league is inviting interested teams to apply for participation at the RoboCup 2013 competition in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The Rescue Simulation league will be held in three classes: Agent, Infrastructure and Multi-Agent Challenge.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">If </span>you are interested in participating, please pre-register your team.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin-left:0cm;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br> </span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">1) Agent Competition</span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
-----------------------------------------------------------------</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The Agent competition involves scoring competing agent coordination algorithms on different maps of the RoboCup Rescue simulation platform. The challenge in this case involves developing coordination algorithms that will enable teams of Ambulances, Police Forces, and Fire Brigades to save as many civilians as possible and extinguish fires in a city where an earthquake has just happened.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Teams have to individually achieve a score on chosen maps which represent different situations (e.g., civilians and fires, major fire in one corner of a city, blocked roads to refuges, damaged platoon agents, fire maps, civilian maps where only fires need to be extinguished or civilians need be saved respectively) and this will determine how they compare with other teams. The teams with the highest scores in all the maps are then selected to move up the various rounds of the tournament, which is composed of two preliminaries round, one semi-final round and one final round.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">2) Infrastructure Competition</span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The Infrastructure competition involves evaluating tools and simulators for simulating disaster management problems in general. Here, the intent is to build up realistic simulators and tools that could be used to enhance the basic RoboCup Rescue simulator and expand upon it. The best tools and simulators will be evaluated by a panel and a winner chosen accordingly. The best tools will be selected for further integration with the simulation platform.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">This year, teams and participants should focus in the following scopes:</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">1. A contribution to increase the future number of participants;</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">2. An integration of Agent and Virtual Robot competitions;</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">3. Improvements for server’s stability;</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">4. Improvements for sub simulators.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br><br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">DUTY OF RELEASE</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">In the Team Description Paper (TDP), the team must describe a schedule for release of their result. If the winner releases their result, the prize will be sent to them.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">If the team doesn't release it, we cancel the prize of infrastructure winner.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br><br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">3) Multi-Agent Challenge</span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">----------------------------------------------------------</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> RoboCup Rescue 2013 Multi-Agent Challenge</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a href="http://kaspar.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~rslb" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">http://kaspar.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~rslb</a></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Entries are welcome for the 2013 RoboCup Rescue Agent challenge</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">to be held in conjunction with the RoboCup 2013.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Participation in the challenge will consist of demonstrating efficient</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">algorithms for coordinating large teams of agents solving one or more of the</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">pre-defined challenge tasks in the Rescue Agent simulation environment.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The goal of the challenge is to provide scenarios relevant to large-scale</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">urban search and rescue (USAR) and disaster mitigation.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">These will include performance metrics to assess technologies in the areas</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">of distributed and centralized multi-agent task allocation, team formation, and path planning. The challenge comes with an open source policy designed</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">to encourage collaboration and the dissemination of ideas and algorithms.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">CHALLENGE FORMAT</span></b><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The competition will include several tasks run within various scenarios.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Teams are encouraged to participate in as many tasks as possible.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Each task will be designed by a simple interface that does not require</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">implementing the full agent solution as needed for the main competition.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">This interface could be, for example, a simple function call for assigning</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">agents to targets given utilities computed beforehand.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Winners in each of the individual task as well as an overall winner</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">will be announced. The overall winner receives an official RoboCup Rescue challenge award.<br>Teams have to hand-in beforehand their Team Description Paper (TDP) that should explain the team's methods for addressing the announced tasks.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">CHALLENGE TASKS</span></b><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Envisioned tasks are, for example, the distributed and centralized</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">assignment of agents to targets. These targets could be either fires</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">to extinguish or buried civilians to rescue.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The challenge in this task is to distribute agents among the targets</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">in that to minimize the overall damage, i.e., either reducing the number</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">of burning buildings or increasing the number of rescued civilians.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Another task will be the efficient planning of multi-agent routes</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">given the problem of unknown blockage of roads, also known as the</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Canadian Traveler Problem.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">More details can be found on the web page at</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a href="http://kaspar.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~rslb" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">http://kaspar.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~rslb</a></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br><br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> 4) Pre-registration</span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">-----------------------------------------------------</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">For the pre-registration you need to send an email to </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a href="mailto:faraji.farshid@gmail.com" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">faraji.farshid@gmail.com</a></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> with the subject <b><i>'</i></b></span><b><i>2013 Pre-registration TEAM_NAME'</i></b>. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr">The E-Mail should contain the following information:<br>
<br>1. Team name:<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">2. Team leader:</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">3. Email address:</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">4. Institution:</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">5. City and country:</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">6. Estimated size of team: </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">7. Competition you want to enter:</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> [ ] Agent competition</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> [ ] Multi-agent challenge (See call for participation below)</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> [ ] Infrastructure competition</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The pre-registration <b><i>deadline is </i></b></span><b><i><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">January 15th</span></i></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">, no qualification materials are required at this stage. A list of pre-registered teams will be published</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">regularly at </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a href="http://www.roborescue.sf.net/" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">http://www.roborescue.sf.net</a></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">5) Qualification</span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">--------------------------------------------------------------</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">For qualification, each team is required to submit a team description paper </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">(TDP) for each competition entry. Information about the submission procedure will be sent to the pre-registered teams and to the mailing list at a later stage. Qualification deadline is </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">February 10th</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">.<br>
<br><br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">6) Rule and Package</span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">-----------------------------------------------------------------------</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">We will announce final rule and package by qualification deadline. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br><br><br><br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">7) RoboCup Rescue: Communication Library</span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">-------------------------------------------------------------------</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">This library is a "Communication Library".</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">By using this library teams can share a part of their source code, easily.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">This library provides the communication protocol between agents and center.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">We recommend teams to use this library:</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a href="http://sourceforge.jp/projects/rcrscs/releases/" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">http://sourceforge.jp/projects/rcrscs/releases/</a></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br><br></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">8) Important Dates<br></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">-----------------------------------------------------------------------</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Team Pre-Registration Deadline: January 15th, 2013</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Deadline for qualification materials: February 10th, 2013</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> <br></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Team Qualification Notification: </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">February 28th</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">, 201</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">3</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Best Regards,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Farshid Faraji</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);direction:ltr">On Behalf of Organizing Committee<br>RoboCup 2013 Rescue Agent Simulation</p>
<div><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div></div>