About The Challenge
Amazon is able to quickly package and ship millions of items to customers from a network of fulfillment centers all over the globe. This wouldn't be possible without leveraging cutting-edge advances in technology. Amazon's automated warehouses are successful at removing much of the walking and searching for items within a warehouse. However, commercially viable automated picking in unstructured environments still remains a difficult challenge. It is our goal to strengthen the ties between the industrial and academic robotic communities and promote shared and open solutions to some of the big problems in unstructured automation. In order to spur the advancement of these fundamental technologies, Amazon organized the first Amazon Picking Challenge at ICRA 2015.
The 2016 event will be held in conjunction with Robocup 2016 in Leipzig, Germany June 30 to July 3 (exact APC event dates to be announced). This year there will be two parallel competitions: the Pick Task will be a more difficult version of the 2015 competition, and the new Stow Task will introduce the challenge of taking items out of a tote and putting them into the shelving unit. The complete and Official 2016 Rules (v2) are now availble.
APC Entry Form
To enter the contest, please fill out the entry form (MS Word or text version) and send one completed form to apc.organizers@gmail.com with the subject line ENTRY FORM: {TEAM NAME}.
Important dates to keep in mind:
| PHASE | Starts | Ends |
|---|---|---|
| PHASE 1: Entry Period | January 12, 2016 | February 5, 2016 |
| PHASE 2: Review Period | February 1, 2016 | February 24, 2016 |
| PHASE 3: Finalist Notification Period | February 25, 2016 | February 26, 2016 |
| PHASE 4: APC Competition | June 29, 2016 | July 3, 2016 |
APC Discussion List
The APC 2016 discussion list is the best way to hear competition announcements and participate in community discussions. To join, fill out the form below:
Need a Robot?
We encourage participants to construct and bring their own systems to the contest or to partner with robot vendors. The following companies generously participated in the 2015 competition and may be open to supporting teams in 2016.
Competition Committee
The entire organizing committee can be reached at committee@amazonpickingchallenge.org
Organizers:
Joey Durham, [josepdur@amazon.com]
Pete Wurman, [pwurman@gmail.com]
Advisory Committee:
Joseph Romano, Berkshire Grey
Oliver Brock, TU Berlin
Alberto Rodriquez, MIT
Dmitry Berenson, WPI
