The CYBATHLON Challenges March 2023: Schedule and Races

The upcoming CYBATHLON Challenges 2023 will feature 15 teams from all over the world, each given two tasks from the 2024 Races and Rules to complete. The teams will compete in the Challenges on March 29, with seven teams competing in the Arm Prosthesis Race, two teams each in the Wheelchair and Vision Assistance Races, three teams in the Robot Assistance Race, and one team competing in the Leg prosthesis Race. Eight teams will compete at the Zurich Hub in Winterthur and the remaining eight teams will begin their races from their own home Hubs in Italy, France, Spain, the US, China and Indonesia.

Only a week remaining for the much-awaited second CYBATHLON Challenges. On Wednesday, 29 March 2023, various teams will test their assistance technologies, most likely throughout the five disciplines listed for the CYBATHLON Challenges 2023. Fifteen teams from all over the world, together with their pilots, have registered for this year’s Challenges. Eight teams will compete at the Zurich Hub in Winterthur and the remaining seven teams will begin their races from their own home Hubs in Italy, France, the US, China and Indonesia. The Challenges are the build-up to the CYBATHLON 2024, the third global edition, which will occur in October 2024. Each team will be given two tasks from the 2024 Races and Rules to do, and they will have two attempts to complete these tasks. The primary aim of the race is that the team completes the given tasks, and the completion time plays a secondary role.

The final schedule for the Challenges is now available. Like the CYBATHLON Global Edition 2020 and the last CYBATHLON Challenges in May 2022, the competition in March will be live-streamed on www.cybathlon.com. 

The Programme

Wednesday, 29 March

11:00 CET – ARM Prosthesis Race

13:00 CET – Assistance Robot Race

14:00 CET – LEG Prosthesis Race

15.00 CET – Wheelchair Race

16:00 CET – Vision Assistance Race

Commentators

Nick Fellows, who previously presided over the CYBATHLON 2020 Global Edition and the last Challenges, will host and comment on the stream, which will feature the races of the competing teams. Nick will be joined and assisted by co-commentators Christian Bermes on Arm Prosthesis, Assistance Robot and Wheelchair Races; Chiara Basla on Leg Prosthesis Race; and Patrick Pfreundschuh on Vision Assistance Race. Christian has been teaching and researching at the UAS Graubunden in Switzerland. He leads the Mobile Robotics field of study and develops robots with the IPR research team in the newly founded Mobile Robotics Lab. Chiara is a doctoral student at the SMS Lab at ETH Zurich and she works on a lightweight wearable exosuit to help patients with muscle weakness across activities of daily living. And Patrick is working on his PhD with a focus on robust LiDAR localisaton in challenging environments. As a member of team SightGuide, he will also contribute to the first edition of the Vision Assistance Race at the CYBATHLON in 2024.

15 teams at Eight Hubs

On March 29, fifteen teams will compete in the CYBATHLON Challenges, with seven teams competing in the Arm Prosthesis Race, two teams each competing in the Wheelchair and the Vision Assistance Races, three teams competing in the Robot Assistance Race, and one team competing in the Leg Prosthesis Race. Two of the fifteen teams — the FlashLight (United States), and the Eyerider (Hungry) in the Vision Assistance Race — are new and have never participated in a CYBATHLON event before. The other thirteen teams have taken part in CYBATHLON competitions, either in the Challenges that occurred in May 2022 or the preceding global editions in 2016 or 2020.

The teams from France's SmartArm ARM, China's SIBET, Indonesia's Karla Bionics, and Italy's BionIT Labs will compete in the Arm Prosthesis Race at their various locations in Paris, Suzhou, Badung, and Soleto. The hub in Zurich will serve as the starting point for the races for the Swedish teams e-OPRA and x-OPRA and the Spanish team ARM2u. The German team EDAN will begin the Assistance Robot Race at its Wessling hub, while the two Swiss teams RSL and BFH-FAIR will begin at the Zurich hub. The hub in Zurich will serve as the starting point for the Leg Prosthesis Race team Össur. In the Wheelchair Race, the Swiss team Robility enhanced and the German team Autak will each start in the Zurich hub and Aachen, respectively. Finally, the American team FlashLight and the Hungarian team Eyerider will begin their respective races in the hubs in Amherst and Zurich for the Vision Assistance Race.

Two New Disciplines

At the Challenges, CYBATHLON will be holding competitions for the first time in our two new disciplines, Vision Assistance and Assistance Robot Race. In these two disciplines, people with disabilities solve everyday tasks with the help of intelligent visual assistance technologies or robot assistants. The ongoing competitions are also a good opportunity to test procedures in these two new disciplines for 2024. CYBATHLON is all very excited to see how the teams will perform the following tasks:

Assistance Robot Race - Eating

• Task: Use an assistance robot to pick up and eat an apple
• Testes: Robot’s ability to safely manoeuvre objects of various shapes and textures

Assistance Robot Race - Clean Up

• Task: Move a series of objects to predefined storage locations
• Tests: Ability to distinguish between objects and move to target locations

Vision Assistance Race – Sidewalk

• Task: Cross a space without touching any objects
• Tests: Assistive device’s ability to identify and guide users around obstacles

Vision Assistance Race – Serving

• Task: Place a drink and soup on the table in the designated spot
• Tests: The ability to carry food without spilling anything

Promoting Cooperation from the Very Beginning

CYBATHLON aims to promote the development of assistive technology for people with disabilities around the world. The main component is an international competition in eight disciplines, in which teams of developers and people with physical disabilities compete against each other and solve everyday tasks with the help of the latest technology.

The CYBATHLON Challenges give research and development teams the chance to incorporate persons with disabilities from the very beginning of their development process and evaluate their assistance solutions in a competitive environment. Up until CYBATHLON 2024, it is anticipated that the online contests will take place twice a year in some or all of the CYBATHLON categories. The teams will be given two or more tasks from the Races and Rules of the CYBATHLON 2024, which the competition management has prepared at home in order to conduct the tournament.

More information about the CYBATHLON Challenges at https://cybathlon.ethz.ch/en/events/challenges/CYBATHLON-Challenges-2023.  

If you have any queries about CYBATHLON events or partnership possibilities or if you and your team would like to participate in the CYBATHLON 2024, contact us at [email protected]