About the Team
The Intelligent Robots and Systems research group at the Intelligent for Systems and Robotics has led significant EU-funded projects focused on human-robot interactions and social behaviors. One notable initiative, the MOnarCH project, aimed to equip autonomous robots with capabilities to engage and entertain children facing health challenges, particularly those undergoing cancer treatment at the Instituto Português de Oncologia Francisco Gentil in Lisbon (IPO).
Following this, from 2013 to 2015, the RoCKIn project involved competitions designed to evaluate new benchmark methods in domestic and work environments, addressing complex challenges faced by state-of-the-art robots. Inspired by the success of these projects, we formed the SocRob@Home team, a dedicated group ready to tackle future challenges in robotics, including those presented in scientific competitions.
Our focus encompasses key areas such as perception and sensor fusion, decision-making under uncertainty, human-robot interaction, and manipulation and grasping. Together, we aim to advance the field of robotics and enhance the interactions between robots and their environments.
This is our newly launched website for 2025 and beyond. For additional details on our project history, you can look into our previous website here.
Competitions
euRobin Coopetition 2024
3rd PlaceRoboCup 2024
3rd PlacePortugal Open 2024
2nd PlaceRoboCup 2023
2nd PlacePortugal Open 2023
2nd PlaceSciRoc 2021
(Hybrid Event)RoboCup 2021
4th PlaceERL Smart Cities
1st TournamentERL Consumer
Local TournamentTo mention other past competitions, SocRob@Home has consistently showcased its capabilities at international robotics events. In 2018, the team participated in the ERL Consumer Major Tournament in Madrid, and at RoboCup@Home, they earned a 4th place finish in the Open Platform SubLeague. SocRob@Home also competed at the Portuguese Robotics Open in Torre Vedras.
In 2017, they achieved standout results at the European Robotics League in Lisbon, ranking highly across categories including semantic mapping, navigation, and perception, and took 5th place in the RoboCup German Open. In 2016, they gained significant experience at the RoboCup in Leipzig.
Going back to 2015, SocRob@Home had a landmark performance at the RoCKIn Competition in Lisbon, winning two Task Benchmarks and tying for first in the RoCKIn@Home Challenge. They also made their debut at the RoboCup German Open that year, winning the "Most Appealing Robot" award.
Roster
Are you looking for an amazing experience with real robots in a team environment, while contributing actively to state-of-the-art research and gaining personal experience that will prove fruitful for your academic and professional future?
If you are interested in joining SocRob@Home, please send an email to socrob.home@gmail.com, or directly contact the responsible, stating who you are, your motivations, your academic background, and how you would contribute to this project.
Robots
Bob
Lola
MBot
ISR-CoBot
Publications
Rui Bettencourt, Catarina Caramalho, Gabriel Nunes, Rodrigo Serra, Alberto Vale, Pedro Lima, “Indoor 2.5D Navigation for Ground Robots” , Conference paper.
Alejandro Suarez, et al., “Door-to-Door Parcel Delivery From Supply Point to User’s Home With Heterogeneous Robot Team: The euROBIN First-Year Robotics Hackathon” , Conference paper.
Vicente Pinto, Rui Bettencourt, Rodrigo Ventura, “People Re-Identification in Service Robots” , Conference paper.
Meysam Basiri, Joao Pereira, Rui Bettencourt, Enrico Piazza, E. Fernandes, Carlos Azevedo, Pedro Lima, “Functionalities, Benchmarking System and Performance Evaluation for a Domestic Service Robot: People Perception, People Following, and Pick and Placing” , Journal Article.
Tomás Ribeiro, Oscar Lima, Michael Cashmore, Andrea Micheli, Rodrigo Ventura, “Olisipo: A probabilistic approach to the adaptable execution of deterministic temporal plans” , Conference Paper.
Carlos Azevedo, António Matos, Pedro Lima, Jose Avendaño, “Petri Net Toolbox for Multi-Robot Planning under Uncertainty” , Journal Article.
Rui Bettencourt, Pedro Lima, “Multimodal Navigation for Autonomous Service Robots” , Conference Paper.
Pedro Lima, Carlos Azevedo, Emilia Brzozowska, João Cartucho, Tiago Dias, Joao Goncalves, Mithun Kinarullathil, Guilherme Lawless, Oscar Lima, Rute Luz, Pedro Miraldo, Enrico Piazza, Miguel Silva, Tiago Veiga, Rodrigo Ventura, “SocRob@Home: Integrating AI Components in a Domestic Robot System” , Journal Article.
João Gonçalves, Pedro Lima, “Grasp Planning with Incomplete Knowledge About the Object to be Grasped” , Conference Paper.
Emilia Brzozowska, Oscar Lima, Rodrigo Ventura, “A generic optimization based cartesian controller for robotic mobile manipulation” , Conference Paper.
Tiago Veiga, Miguel Silva, Rodrigo Ventura, Pedro Lima, “An Hierarchical Approach to Active Semantic Mapping Using Probabilistic Logic and Information Reward POMDP” , Journal Article.
Meysam Basiri, Enrico Piazza, M. Matteucci, Pedro Lima, “Benchmarking Functionalities of Domestic Service Robots Through Scientific Competitions” , Book Chapter.
Rute Luz, Guilherme Lawless, Oscar Lima, Rodrigo Ventura, “Small Obstacle Detection and Avoidance using a depth camera: a Case Study in RoboCup@Home” , Workshop Paper.
Carlos Azevedo, Pedro Lima, “A GSPN Software Framework to Model and Analyze Robot Tasks” , Conference Paper.
Mithun Kinarullathil, Pedro H. Martins, Carlos Azevedo, Oscar Lima, Guilherme Lawless, Pedro U. Lima, Luís Custódio, Rodrigo Ventura, “From User Spoken Commands to Robot Task Plans: a Case Study in RoboCup@Home” , Workshop Paper.
Oscar Lima, Rodrigo Ventura, and Iman Awaad, “Integrating classical planning and real robots in industrial and service robotics domains” , Workshop Paper.
João Cartucho, Rodrigo Ventura, and Manuela Veloso, “Robust object recognition through symbiotic deep learning in mobile robots” , Conference Paper.
Pedro Miraldo, Francisco Eiras, Srikumar Ramalingam, “Analytical Modeling of Vanishing Points and Curves in Catadioptric Cameras” , Conference Paper.
Pedro Miraldo, Tiago Dias, Srikumar Ramalingam, “A Minimal Closed-Form Solution for Multi-Perspective Pose Estimation using Points and Lines” , Conference Paper.
Oscar Lima, Rodrigo Ventura, “A case study on automatic parameter optimization of a mobile robot localization algorithm” , Conference Paper.
José Iglésias, Pedro Miraldo, Rodrigo Ventura, “Towards an Omnidirectional Catadioptric RGB-D Camera” , Conference Paper.
Rodrigo Ventura, Meysam Basiri, André Mateus, J. Garcia, Pedro Miraldo, P. Santos, Pedro Lima, “A Domestic Assistive Robot Developed Through Robotic Competitions” , Workshop Paper.
News
Media
Watch SocRob performances and research on our YouTube Channel.