Track 4: "PDR for warehouse picking (off-site)"

The goal of this challenge is the precision improvement of positioning technique, sharing a common recognition of problems and establishment of a method to compare the warehouse technique for the logistics by competing the precision of the pedestrian dead reckoning(PDR) techniques using the picking data measured in a real warehouse for the logistics. Comparing to the usual walking, PDR positioning using the measuring data in a warehouse includes a variety of tasks like picking, gathering, walking in a warehouse, carrying goods with carts and so on. Therefore, the advanced PDR positioning techniques and its correction techniques to treat a variety of situations as mentioned above are needed.

The winner of Track 4 will be awarded one of the following prizes by PDR benchmark standardization committee (JP) according to the winner's preference.

1) PDR module (Sugihara SEI Co. &Lt., 200,000 JPY worth) + 100,000 JPY

or

2) 150,000 JPY

This challenge is done off-site, so all data processing will be done using sensor data measured by 8 people in a warehouse for about 3 hours for each. For evaluation standard, competitors need to use the WMS picking logs recorded during measuring the sensor data.

As the sensor data for PDR, the gyro data, the acceleration data, the magnetic data, the pressure data and BLE beacon data were measured using the android smartphones (LG Nexus5). The smartphone was mounted by the warehouse worker and the wearing position was kept as same as possible.

The test subjects of this challenge were the workers picking goods in a warehouse. The expected actions of the picking workers are as follows.

• Walking in a warehouse
• Vouching
• Picking at shelves (including the operating the terminals)
• Carrying goods using carts
  

Information about correct actions of each time are not given.

As mentioned above, during data measurement, the test subjects do not always walk. They do several types of behaviors while changing their position. The selection of the moving route for the picking instruction was left up to the workers in a warehouse, so while walking a variety of moving ways are possible like stop on the route, change the direction, side stepping and rear walking.

The smartphone is fixed to the waist with a waist pouch as shown in the figure.

By the nature of the data measured in this challenge, the positioning methods used by the contest participants are desired to have following abilities.

• PDR method which has robust positioning functions for moving in a warehouse
• Functions to cancel out accumulated errors by given discrete positional refeference and RSSI of BLE beacons
• Time series optimization using the given data
• Keeping naturality of attitude during the picking action (picking position, amount of moving)
• Keeping naturality of walking speed
• Function to avoid incursion into the area of objections

Warehouse A is sample data showing long-term measurement in the logistics warehouse.
Warehouse B is data to be used in the real competition, and sample data of Warehouse B extra only 30 minutes from the measurement start time.

The time (in Unixtime) of the range of the measurement in Warehouse B of this competition is as follows.

Terminal_ID,Measurement_start_time,Wearing_start_time,Measurement_end_time

"Terminal_ID" is a number for distinguishing terminals. "Measurement_start_time" is the time when the terminal started recording sensor data. "Wearing_start_time" is the time when the terminal was actually worn on the employee's body. Before the workers worn the terminals, the terminals were arranged on a table. "Measurement_end_time" is the time when the terminal stop recording at the measurement.

Actual evaluation points for real competition are existed between wearing_start_time and measurement_end_time.

We are disclosing the data which is extracted only first 30 minutes of warehouse B as sample data. Data extraction was performed on "Sensor data of terminal(Working data)" and "WMS". Note that sample WMS data include WMS logs before Measurement_start_time, you can ignore the data outside of the range of measurement.

Sensor data of terminal

Map information

WMS data

Sensor data of terminal

Map information

WMS data

BLE beacon information

Competitors are requested to follow the steps as mentioned below for participating this challenge.

During the registration period, contestant of the competitions can register themselves as the competitors of the PDR challenge.

　For this track 4, admission process can be separated into pre-admission, and real-admission.
If you have an interest for joining PDR challenge, please send an e-mail to pdr-warehouse2017@aist.go.jp with your self-introduction (at least with your name and institution). Then we will provide the access pass (ID and Password) for downloading sample data. We regard this e-mail as your pre-admission for track 4.
Real-registration follows the same Admission Process with the other tracks.

 

[Admission Process]
A "competitor" can be any individual or group of individuals working as a single team, associated to a single or a number of organizations, who wants to participate in one or several tracks.

 

Competitors apply for admission to the competition tracks by providing a short (2 to 4 pages) "technical description" of their localization system, including a description of the algorithms and protocols used. The technical description must be sent by e-mail to the chairs of the intended track. Track chairs will accept or refuse the application in a short time, based on technical feasibility and logistic constraints.

 

After acceptance of the competitor's technical description, one member of the competing team is required to register to the IPIN conference, specifying that the registration is linked to a competition track. Full registration to the conference covers participation in the competition process (allocated time, support and space) and the submission of a paper describing the system.

 

Competitors are required to make an oral presentation of their system during a dedicated session at the IPIN conference. Additionally, competitor teams are invited, but not required, to submit a paper to the conference. The paper will follow the same peer review and publishing process as all the other papers submitted to IPIN. If the paper is work-in-progress, competitors can benefit from relaxed deadline as specified below.

 

Competitors who wish to test their system, but do not want to be included in the public rankings and compared with other competitors, can ask for that special condition in advance to the chairs of the relevant track.

　If the pre-admission for the PDR challenge is completed, competitors can obtain a password and a user ID for downloading the sample data of the PDR challenge so that they start preparing the competition.

　If you decide to join the track 4, you are required to complete real-admission. In order to complete real-admission, you need to submit a short (2 to 4 pages) "technical description" of their localization system, including a description of the algorithms and protocols used. And you (at least one member from your group) are also required to register to the IPIN conference.
Sample data provided for whom they completed pre-admission are not the final data for the competition. Actual test data and participation rights for the competition are exclusively provided for competitors who completed also completed the conference registration of the IPIN2017.

Actual data for the competition are provided after confirmation of the completion of the conference registration. The competitors can obtain another user ID and a password for downloading the actual data for the competition.

Competitors should submit their result of estimation of the trajectory with predetermined format which includes x,y coordinate of the target positions and orientation of the targets with timestamps. Definition of exact format and sample data for submission will be included in the actual data package described above.
Dead-line for result submission: 8 September 2017

Competitors are required to present their methods and algorithms, and state their advantages of the methods and algorithms in the light of the evaluation criteria in the special session of the competitions during the conference. Additionally, competitors are invited, but not required, to submit a paper to the conference. At the end of the session, the competition organizers will show competitors' results and estimated trajectories. The results will be scored by a composite indicator according to the evaluation criteria.

The final metric will be based on:

• The accuracy of the position estimation
• The naturalness of estimated trajectories considering human's attitude
• The unique criteria for tracking the picking workers

The final score will be calculated by weighted sum of following individual scores.
The final comprehensive evaluation (C.E.) will be calculated as follows:
C.E=(E_d *0.2)+(E_s *0.2)+(E_v *0.15)+(E_f *0.1)+(E_p *0.05)+(E_o *0.3)

Please contact us freely via pdr-warehouse2017@aist.go.jp

If you need a private contact, you can write to the track chairs:
・Masakatsu Kourogi (m.kourogi@aist.go.jp), AIST, Tsukuba Japan
・Ryosuke Ichikari (r.ichikari@aist.go.jp), AIST, Tsukuba Japan