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Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition
ARIAC 2025 Environment
Latest Updates
19 September 2025
ARIAC 2025 - Competition Update - Bug Fixes & Documentation Complete
We've pushed a small update to the competition today that addresses a few issues. Please refer to the package changelogs for detailed information about the fixes.
Action Required:
- If using Docker: Pull the latest image
- If working locally: Pull and build the latest versions
Additionally, we've completed all remaining documentation pages. Everything should now be fully documented and ready for your reference.
Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or encounter any issues. Good luck with the competition!
17 September 2025
ARIAC 2025.1.0 Release
For this year's competition, instead of tutorials, we have created an example team repository that currently has four examples to run:
- Dummy inspection: Controls the cell feed on the inspection conveyor and submits dummy inspection reports using data from the break beam sensor.
- Move Robots: Create moveit_py nodes for all five robots in the environment and move through simple linear motions simultaneously.
- Pick from voltage tester: Use inspection robot 2 to pick a cell from the voltage tester and drop it in the recycling bin.
- Submit kit: Move AGV1 to the shipping station and submit a kit.
The ARIAC App is also new for this year. The application runs in a browser and works whether you are running locally or through docker. It allows teams to:
- Create trial configs
- Create/edit user config
- Create and connect to a local database to save run data
- Start and monitor run
- Start team ROS processes (launch or run)
- View results for runs started with the db
Good luck!
29 August 2025
ARIAC 2025 Kickoff Launch Telecon
The Agenda will be finalized next week, but is tentatively:
Times listed as Eastern US Time (UTC TIME)
09:30 am - 09:40 am (1330 - 1340) - Introductions and Agenda
09:40 am - 10:00 am (1340 - 14000) - Background of NIST, Robotic Agility, and ARIAC
10:00 am - 11:00 pm (1400 - 1500) - Approaches of past ARIAC Teams
11:00 pm - 11:45 pm (1500 - 1545) - Updates to ARIAC 2025 & Demonstration
11:45 pm - 12:30 pm (1545 - 1630) - Open time for Questions and Answers with ARIAC Devs
To make sure to stay up to date with info as it comes out for ARIAC 2025, and to participate, please register at:
https://bit.ly/ariac2025
Connection Info for the Kickoff Virtual Meeting:
01 October 2024
ARIAC 2024 Results
The Results for the Finals of ARIAC 2024 are finally ready to be announced!
Thank you to the four teams that completed the finals this year!
- Team Sirius, Dan Barry, https://www.spacetimemachines.com/ - 1st place ($10,000 prize)
- Team Runaround Robotics (Pramuditha Aravinda and Nishantha Randunu, https://www.runaroundrobotics.com) - 2nd Place ($5,000 prize)
- Team Reaper (Peng Zeng, Guangxi Wan, Chunhe Song, Ruikai Liu, Jiyuan Zhang, Haojie Chen, Xiaohui Wang, Qingwei Dong, Xiaoting Dong, Defan Wu, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, NCS Lab, Intelligent Manufacturing System Group) - 3rd place
- Team UTA Robotic Vision Lab (Minh Tram, Joseph Salas-Leon, William Beksi, University of Texas at Arlington, http://rvl.uta.edu) - 4th Place ($2,500 prize)
The scoring was performed based on a combination of performance, efficiency, and cost metrics across the trials, in addition to the results from a panel of three Judges.
Congratulations to all the participating teams on their innovative solutions to the problems posed by the ARIAC2024 Competition.
08 July 2024
ARIAC 2024 Final Dates and Official Rules
For more information about ARIAC, please check out https://www.nist.gov/ariac
25 January 2024
ARIAC 2024 Kickoff Virtual Meeting
NIST is happy to announce the kickoff meeting for the Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition(ARIAC) 2024. The kickoff meeting will take place on Wednesday, 31 January 2024, at 11:00 am Eastern time (1600 UTC).
The Agenda will be finalized by next Monday, but is tentatively:
Times listed as Eastern US Time (UTC TIME)
11:00 am - 11:10 am (1600 - 1610) - Introductions and Agenda
11:10 am - 11:30 am (1610 - 1630) - Background of NIST, Robotic Agility, and ARIAC
11:30 am - 12:30 pm (1630 - 1730) - Approaches of past ARIAC Teams
12:30 pm - 1:15 pm (1730 - 1815) - Updates to ARIAC 2024 & Demonstration
1:15 pm - 2:00 pm (1815 - 1900) - Open time for Questions and Answers with ARIAC Devs
To make sure to stay up to date with info as it comes out for ARIAC 2024, and to participate, please register at: https://bit.ly/ariac2024
Connection Info for the Kickoff Virtual Meeting:
Join the Microsoft Teams Meeting on your computer, mobile app or room device:
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 274 172 891 64
Passcode: BHxgCo
For more information about ARIAC, please check out https://www.nist.gov/ariac
25 August 2023
ARIAC 2023 Results
The Results for the Finals of ARIAC 2023 are finally ready to be announced!
Thank you to the four teams that completed the finals this year!
- Team Reaper (Peng Zeng, Chunhe Song,Guangxi Wan, Haoran Liu,Haojie Chen,Ruikai Liu ,Yunpeng He, Qingwei Dong, Xiaoting Dong, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, NCS Lab, Intelligent Manufacturing System Group) - 1st Place
- Team Runaround Robotics (Pramuditha Aravinda and Nishantha Randunu, https://www.runaroundrobotics.com) - 2nd Place ($10,000 prize)
- Team LAHNT (Isaac Saito) - 3rd Place ($5,000 prize)
- Team UTA Robotic Vision Lab (Minh Tram, William Beksi, University of Texas at Arlington, http://rvl.uta.edu) - 4th Place ($2,500 prize)
The scoring was performed based on a combination of performance, efficiency, and cost metrics across the trials, in addition to the results from a panel of three Judges.
Congratulations to all the participating teams on their innovative solutions to the problems posed by the ARIAC2023 Competition.
Thank you all for your patience and support for the competition and we wish you good luck in future years as well!
If you would like to make sure you hear the latest information about the ARIAC 2023 Workshop as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
22 May 2023
Release 1.5. and Finals Schedule
Attention Potential ARIAC Competitors,
Release Version 1.5 has been released on GitHub and here is an update to the schedule for the finals:
The final iteration of the Qualifiers Submissions will be run and feedback given via log files in your submission folder on Google Drive on Tuesday, 23 May 2023, so if you want to be included on that, make sure to submit your updated yaml file (see https://ariac.readthedocs.io/en/latest/automated_evaluation/automated_evaluation_overview.html for details) tonight.
For the Finals Submissions, in order to be considered for the finals you must have your correctly formatted files submitted into your submission folder by 8am Eastern (1200 UTC) on Monday 05 June 2023. If you would like to have a check (not scoring, just a check of 'Does my code compile or cause errors loading in the final Docker') then submit your scripts by Friday 26 May 2023 and send an email requesting a smoke test to ariac [at] nist.gov (subject: Smoke%20Test) (ariac[at]nist[dot]gov)
As a reminder, this year only, you do not need to participate in the qualifying round to be eligible for the finals, but it will help you to see how your system performs. If you are interested in joining the competition after the qualifying round is over, please send an email to anthony.downs [at] nist.gov (anthony[dot]downs[at]nist[dot]gov) for further instructions.
Thank you all for your patience and support for the competition and we wish you good luck!
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
11 May 2023
Automated Evaluation update to Release 1.4
Attention Potential ARIAC Competitors,
There is an update to Release 1.4 coming out shortly (if it is not already up on Github)
Please take a look specifically at the Automated Evaluations page ( https://ariac.readthedocs.io/en/latest/automated_evaluation/automated_evaluation_overview.html ) as these details have changed.
Please update your team's .yaml file in your google drive by Monday, 15 May 2023 at COB Eastern Time to be part of the qualifying round.
As a reminder, this year only, you do not need to participate in the qualifying round to be eligible for the finals, but it will help you to see how your system performs. If you are interested in joining the competition after the qualifying round is over, please send an email to anthony.downs [at] nist.gov (anthony[dot]downs[at]nist[dot]gov) for further instructions.
We will send out an update to the schedule of deadlines via email, website, and https://ariac.readthedocs.io/en/latest/getting_started/events.html next week.
If you have issues with the Release 1.4 Automated Evaluation, post them on the discussion page: https://github.com/usnistgov/ARIAC/discussions/242
Thank you all for your patience and support for the competition and we wish you good luck!
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
01 May 2023
Update to the schedule for Qualifiers and Finals
Attention Potential ARIAC Competitors,
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
11 April 2023
Update to the schedule for Qualifiers
Attention Potential ARIAC Competitors,
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
04 April 2023
Release 1.1, Tutorials, and our next ARIAC 2023 Office Hours
Attention Potential ARIAC Competitors,
Come and talk with the NIST Team and potentially get some answers to your questions.
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer, mobile app or room device
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 276 199 817 968
Passcode: QybFVM
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
15 March 2023
Our next ARIAC 2023 Office Hours
Attention Potential ARIAC Competitors,
In future weeks, we will continue to adjust the time of this to better allow for more participation from other time zones.
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer, mobile app or room device
Meeting ID: 231 890 227 533
Passcode: HHaSN2
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
08 March 2023
Announcing ARIAC 2023 Office Hours
Attention Potential ARIAC Competitors,
NIST is starting this year to hold Office Hours for ARIAC 2023.
In future weeks, we will try to adjust the time of this to better allow for more participation from other time zones.
Friday, March 10, 2023
1:00 PM | (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) | 1 hr
https://nist-secure.webex.com/nist-secure/j.php?MTID=md48a8f7fb958cf1a094d0f4b6fcb1a78
Join by meeting number
Meeting number (access code): 2762 857 7247
Meeting password: 5aWbEezH?27
Tap to join from a mobile device (attendees only)
+1-415-527-5035,,27628577247## US Toll
+1-929-251-9612,,27628577247## USA Toll 2
Join by phone
+1-415-527-5035 US Toll
+1-929-251-9612 USA Toll 2
Global call-in numbers
Join from a video system or application
Dial 27628577247 [at] nist-secure.webex.com
You can also dial 207.182.190.20 and enter your meeting number.
Need help? Go to https://help.webex.com
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
01 March 2023
ARIAC 2023 Competition Release (v1.0)
Attention Potential ARIAC Competitors,
Version 1.0 is now released on GitHub
You can find it at https://github.com/usnistgov/ARIAC
Good luck and we cannot wait to see your solutions this year!
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
24 February 2023
ARIAC 2023 Competition Release (v1.0) delayed
Hello potential ARIAC Competitors!
The competition (v1.0) release of the ARIAC 2023 competition is being delayed to March 1, 2023 in order to make sure that all of the documentation is fully ready when we push this release out. We will send out an additional post on https://www.nist.gov/ariac and send out emails via the ARIAC2023 mailing list when the Release happens next week.
The schedule is now as follows:
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Monday, 23 January 2023 | "Beta" Software and Documentation Release |
| Wednesday, 01 March 2023 | "Competition" (1.0) Software and Documentation Release |
| Friday, 24 March 2023 | Docker Instructions for Competitors |
| Monday, 10 April 2023 | Qualifier Smoke Test Begins |
| Monday, 17 April 2023 | Qualifiers Begin |
| Friday, 28 April 2023 | Qualifiers Submission Deadline |
| Mon, 1 May - Fri, 5 May 2023 | Qualifiers Evaluation Week |
| Monday, 15 May 2023 | Finals Smoke Test Begins |
| Monday, 22 May 2023 | Finals Begin |
| Friday, 26 May 2023 | Finals Submission Deadline |
| Tuesday, 30 May 2023 | Finals Evaluation |
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
24 January 2023
ARIAC 2023 Beta Release
Hello potential ARIAC Competitors!
The beta release of the ARIAC 2023 competition is now up at https://github.com/usnistgov/ariac
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
20 January 2023
ARIAC 2023 Schedule
An update on the schedule for ARIAC 2023
Our original plan of having the Beta Release of the Software and Documentation for today has to be pushed back to Monday, so the schedule is as follows:
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Monday, 23 January 2023 | "Beta" Software and Documentation Release |
| Friday, 24 February 2023 | "Competition" (1.0) Software and Documentation Release |
| Friday, 24 March 2023 | Docker Instructions for Competitors |
| Monday, 10 April 2023 | Qualifier Smoke Test Begins |
| Monday, 17 April 2023 | Qualifiers Begin |
| Friday, 28 April 2023 | Qualifiers Submission Deadline |
| Mon, 1 May - Fri, 5 May 2023 | Qualifiers Evaluation Week |
| Monday, 15 May 2023 | Finals Smoke Test Begins |
| Monday, 22 May 2023 | Finals Begin |
| Friday, 26 May 2023 | Finals Submission Deadline |
| Tuesday, 30 May 2023 | Finals Evaluation |
We apologize for the delay, but look forward to seeing your work and helping us find and fix any bugs starting next week!
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
13 January 2023
ARIAC 2023 Launch Telecon Success and Recordings available
Thank you to all who took the time to attend the ARIAC 2023 Launch Telecon and helped make it a success!
We have the whole thing recorded and the presentations available if there are folks who are interested in seeing it who weren't able to attend in real-time.
If you would like access to the Google Drive with these files, please send an email to anthony.downs [at] nist.gov (anthony[dot]downs[at]nist[dot]gov) with the email that you want the Google Drive folder shared with.
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
09 January 2023
ARIAC 2023 Launch Telecon
We are happy to announce the date for the ARIAC 2023 Launch Telecon and some initial information about the competition for 2023:
Date: Friday, 13 January 2023
Time: 11:30 am - 1:30 pm Eastern US Time (1630-1830 UTC)
Come join us for a rundown of new details and changes for ARIAC 2023
Join information
Meeting link:
https://nist-secure.webex.com/nist-secure/j.php?MTID=mcd23858af39b23c53…;
Meeting number:
2763 885 3918
Password:
quJJ9mBs?45
Join by video system
Dial 27638853918 [at] nist-secure.webex.com (27638853918[at]nist-secure[dot]webex[dot]com)
You can also dial 207.182.190.20 and enter your meeting number.
Join by phone
+1-415-527-5035 US Toll
+1-929-251-9612 USA Toll 2
Access code: 2763 885 3918
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
19 December 2022
ARIAC 2023 Announcement
We are happy to announce the date for the ARIAC 2023 Launch Telecon and some initial information about the competition for 2023:
Date: Friday, 13 January 2023
Time: TBA
Come join us in January for a rundown of new details and changes for ARIAC 2023
If you would like to register to make sure you hear the latest information about ARIAC 2023 as we announce it, please sign up at https://bit.ly/ariac2023.
02 November 2022
ARIAC 2022 Workshop
We are happy to announce the date and a preliminary Agenda for the ARIAC 2022 Workshop:
Date: Monday, 07 November 2022
Time: 11:00 am - 2:00 pm (Eastern US Time) 1600 - 1900 UTC
| Time | Speaker | Presentation |
|---|---|---|
| 11:00 - 11:05 | Anthony Downs | Introduction & Agenda |
| 11:05 - 11:20 | Craig Schlenoff / Anthony Downs | NIST / ARIAC Overview |
| 11:20 - 11:35 | Zeid Kootbally | ARIAC Environment |
| 11:35 - 11:45 | Anthony Downs & Angelo Ferrando | ARIAC Metrics |
| 11:45 - 11:50 | Coffee / Bio Break | |
| 11:50 - 12:05 | Team UTA RVL | Team UTA RVL Approach |
| 12:05 - 12:20 | Team Runaround | Team Runaround Approach |
| 12:20 - 12:30 | Team FER | Team FER Approach |
| 12:30 - 12:35 | Coffee / Bio Break | |
| 12:35 - 12:55 | Daniel Spencer | IEEE Standards Group Work - Robot Agility Matrix |
| 12:55 - 13:15 | Justin Kinney | Industry Representative - ROS-I |
| 13:15 - 13:35 | Addisu Taddese | Industry Representative - Open Source Robots - Gazebo |
| 13:35 - 14:00 | NIST | Open Discussion, Lessons Learned, & the Future of ARIAC |
This will be an online held through WebEx. The connection details are below.
Join from the meeting link
https://nist-secure.webex.com/nist-secure/j.php?MTID=mbe6b45fa37357f030105613e2569f2e9
Join by meeting number
Meeting number (access code): 2762 192 3093
Meeting password: DZgXAUm@379
Tap to join from a mobile device (attendees only)
+1-415-527-5035,,27621923093## US Toll
+1-929-251-9612,,27621923093## USA Toll 2
Join by phone
+1-415-527-5035 US Toll
+1-929-251-9612 USA Toll 2
Global call-in numbers
Join from a video system or application
Dial 27621923093 [at] nist-secure.webex.com (27621923093[at]nist-secure[dot]webex[dot]com)
You can also dial 207.182.190.20 and enter your meeting number.
07 July 2022
ARIAC 2022 Results
We are happy to announce the results of the 2022 ARIAC Competition:
- Team Reaper, Peng Zeng, Guangxi Wan, Tong Zhang, Haoran Liu, Yongchao Feng, Yunpeng He, Qingwei Dong, Xiaoting Dong, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, NCS Lab, Intelligent Manufacturing System Group (1st Place)
- Team Sirius, (2nd Place, $10,000 prize)
- Team UTA Robotic Vision Lab, Minh Tram and William Beksi, University of Texas at Arlington, http://rvl.uta.edu (3rd Place, $5,000 prize)
- Team Runaround Robotics, Pramuditha Aravinda and Nishantha Randunu, https://www.runaroundrobotics.com (4th Place, $2,500 prize)
- Team Italian Job, Gerardo Puga, Ekumen, https://www.ekumenlabs.com/ (5th Place)
- Team FER (6th Place)
The scoring was performed based on a combination of performance, efficiency and cost metrics across the trials, in addition to the results from a panel of three Judges.
Congratulations to all the participating teams on their innovative solutions to the problems posed by the ARIAC 2022 Competition.
20 March 2022
The ARIAC 2022 Software has been released!
The ARIAC Software is releasing tonight! Visit https://github.com/usnistgov/ariac for all the details and to be able to download the software and start building your competitors!
To register and make sure you receive notification for the future details as well as signing up to potentially participate in ARIAC 2022, go to https://bit.ly/ariac2022
15 March 2022
The ARIAC 2022 Software will release this weekend
Hello ARIAC 2022 Folks!
We apologize for the delay in releasing the software for this year’s competition. We have been working to squash some bugs in the updated assembly task, and have been trying to get those worked out so that everything is working for all of you to build your competitors. However, we have been running into a number of issues that have made this take longer than expected.
The software will be released this weekend (although it may not be 100% finalized in regards to assembly) so that all of you can start your work on this year’s competition. Thank you all for your patience as we have been getting this ready for you all!
When the release happens this weekend, we will send an update through our website (https://nist.gov/ariac), as well as an email to the ARIAC 2022 list and update the github site (https://github.com/usnistgov/ariac)
To register and make sure you receive notification for the future details as well as signing up to potentially participate in ARIAC 2022, go to https://bit.ly/ariac2022