NimbRo Team Wins Robotic Avatar Systems Competition

Contact:
Zoé
Sánchez

Please contact us for further information.

The NimbRo team, led by Lamarr Institute’s Principal Investigator Professor Sven Behnke, won first place in the finals of the ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition which took place in Long Beach, California, USA. The global contest was launched in March 2018 and culminated in a public testing event on November 5, 2022. The NimbRo team came top of the international competition, won with a perfect score, and was awarded the grand prize endowed with 5 million US Dollars.

The ANA Avatar XPRIZE challenge was to develop a physical robotic avatar system which allows the human operator to interact with a remote environment. Professor Sven Behnke and his team of scientists from the Autonomous Intelligent Systems Lab of the University of Bonn are the successful creators of the NimbRo robotic avatar system.

In the finals, a panel of judges proclaimed the NimbRo team winner among seventeen finalists from 10 countries. The avatar systems were evaluated according to their speed of execution, ability to interact with humans, explore new environments, and employ specialized skills in completing ten specific tasks.

Robotic avatars systems, also called telepresence systems, give people visual, auditive and tactile information and enable them to perform tasks in real time over long distances. The avatar technology is regarded as key to allowing people to apply their skills in far distant locations in various challenging or critical situations such as providing care or disaster relief as well as performing maintenance and repair activities.

We congratulate the NimbRo team on their spectacular victory and hope for similar breakthrough performances in the future!

Further information:
News from the University of Bonn: Million Prize at International Robot Competition