Updated “Restaurant” Task

[fagnerpimentel]

Is your idea/suggestion related to a problem? Please describe.

Updated “Restaurant” Task

Describe the solution you'd like

• Plates and Cups Service
• Collect plates and Cups + Payment
• New Customer Detection and Menu Delivery
• Robot Call Mechanism
• Mapped or Unmapped Environment

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Plates and Cups Service
  • The robot must serve sturdy plastic plates containing food representations and sturdy plastic cups filled with shredded paper. The use of lightweight plastic materials reduces the risk of breakage and facilitates repeatability. The weight and instability simulated by food representation and shredded paper create a challenge that's closer to real-life service.
    A penalty will be applied if the food representation falls from the plate or if the shredded paper falls from the cup during transport. The penalty for falling encourages precision in navigation, movement control, and fine manipulation.
• Collect plate and cups + Payment
  • At the end of the meal, the customer can call the robot to collect their plate and cup. The robot should inform the bill and ask the customer to go to the cashier to pay (we can provide an option to simulate payment directly on the robot). This allows us to evaluate not only the delivery service but also the end of the service, as well as replicate practices adopted in restaurants, bringing the competitive landscape closer to real market contexts.
• New Customer Detection and Menu Delivery
  • The robot must monitor the restaurant entrance to detect the arrival of new customers. If a customer is identified, the robot must escort the person to a table and offer a menu. This tests the robot's ability to detect people and recognize events in real time without the need for the person to wave.
• Robot Call Mechanism
  • The customer uses a call button at the table, similar to solutions already used in modern restaurants. The table button offers greater reliability and more objective evaluation, reducing errors and simplifying the competition, in addition to bringing it closer to the real world.
    We can leave both options available: the customer can wave or call via a button that could be a Telegram chat, as teams have demonstrated in previous editions of the competition. The choice between the options should allow for an adaptive challenge objective (advancing perception AI or evaluating service stability).
• Mapped or Unmapped Environment
  • Here's a discussion on the topic. Consider whether the test will take place in a previously mapped environment or whether it will require navigation in an unmapped environment. In practice, restaurants provide maps. Using familiar maps optimizes performance and encourages greater focus on manipulation and interaction.

Additional context

The proposed updates aim to balance realism, safety and technical challenge, allowing, to evaluate manipulation and navigation skills with fragile objects, test natural interaction with humans, including service, payment and reception of new customers.