GRIPS (Graz Robust and Intelligent Production System) is a team of students from Graz University of Technology that takes part in the Logistics League of the RoboCup. The team was founded in autumn 2015 as part of the “Construction of Mobile Robots” exercise. Students work on a practical project with a focus on robotics. Beginning 2023, Pro²Future supports the GRIPS Team.
A major new development in 2024 was the parallel planning process. This allows the robots to operate without an explicit planning phase in which all robots are stationary. Only if an action fails does the fleet control go into an explicit planning phase. The gripper was also improved again. In 2023 there were many learnings about the distance sensors and their behavior. This led to a revision of the jaws and the fastening devices of the sensors. This year, for the first time, all parts were made of aluminium. The PLC program was also rewritten from scratch. In addition, an AR system was developed to help the teams and spectators better understand what the robots are currently working on.
GRIPS continued to work on the simulation in the cloud in 2024. A Kubernetes setup was developed that allows the RCLL high-level simulation to be run in a Kubernetes cluster. Unfortunately, the individual components (Refbox or Simulator) are not yet stable enough to run 24/7. The foundation for a simulation challenge was laid. A ROS2 upgrade was also worked on feverishly, which is currently running but not yet stable enough to be used in competitions. All robots will be updated by 2025 at the latest.
In 2024, there was a RoboCup GermanOpen event for the Major Leagues for the first time since 2019. Despite the unfavorable ground, GRIPS prevailed and won the German Open for the third time in a row.
The start of the RoboCup in Eindhoven was bumpy, as GRIPS arrived two days late for the competition due to an organizational error. As a result, instead of three setup days, they only had one day to get the robots ready. Thanks to good preparation in Graz, the team was able to live up to its role as favorite and achieved first place! This was the first successful title defense since the team was founded. The OpenChallenge was also won with the AR system they developed.
See last update: https://www.pro2future.at/grips/
