RoboCup Smart Manufacturing League Team
Autonomous robots for the smart factory.
A joint team from FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences and RWTH Aachen University. We competed in the RoboCup Logistics League from 2012 to 2025 and won it eight times. Since 2026 we compete in its successor, the Smart Manufacturing League.
- RCLL world champions
- 8×
- 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2025
- Competing since
- 2012
- RCLL through 2025, Smart Manufacturing League from 2026
- Universities
- 2
- FH Aachen and RWTH Aachen
- Open-source repositories
- 20+
- The full competition stack, in public
Who we are
A joint team from two Aachen universities
Carologistics is a RoboCup team from Aachen, Germany. Since 2012 we have been building groups of autonomous mobile robots that produce goods together in a simulated smart factory. Once the game starts they drive, perceive, plan and reason on their own.
From 2012 to 2025 we competed in the RoboCup Logistics League (RCLL) and won it eight times: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2025. Salvador in 2025 was the last season under that name, and we took the title with a new points record. Since 2026 the league continues as the RoboCup Smart Manufacturing League (SML). That shifts our work from omnidirectional Robotinos toward whole-body manipulation on humanoid platforms.
Our members come from the Mobile Autonomous Systems & Cognitive Robotics Institute (MASCOR), FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences , the Knowledge-Based Systems Group, RWTH Aachen University and the Chair of Machine Learning and Reasoning, RWTH Aachen University . The IMA/ZLW & IfU Institute Cluster participated until 2018.
Everything we build is open source. Have a look at the competition record , the hardware we run, the software that drives it, the research it feeds into, or the people behind it.
What we do
What working on the team looks like
Most of the work is hands-on: building and wiring the robots, writing the software that runs on them, and finding out at the competition whether it holds up.
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Competing with real robots
A fleet of autonomous robots drives, perceives and assembles products on the competition field. Everything has to work on the hardware, under time pressure, in a hall we have never set foot in before.
Our competition record -
Working on the hardware
Grippers, cameras, laser scanners and onboard computers are mounted and wired by the team. Since 2026 that also includes two humanoid platforms.
Our robots -
Coding the whole stack
Perception, navigation, manipulation and high-level reasoning, all in ROS 2 and all running on the same robot. You can pick a layer to work on and still see the result on the field.
Our software -
Open source
Our competition software is public, including the championship-winning stack we released so that new teams have somewhere to start.
github.com/carologistics -
Shaping the league
Team members sit on the technical and organising committees, writing the rules and steering the move from the Logistics League to Smart Manufacturing.
League committees -
Research from the field
Problems we run into during a season often turn into published work on goal reasoning, execution monitoring and robotic assembly. Several theses have come out of it.
What we have published
Track record
Recent results
Results from the last few seasons. The full record goes back to 2012.
2026
-
RoboCup 2026
Our first season in the RoboCup Smart Manufacturing League, the successor to the Logistics League.
- 2nd Place, Workbench TrackThe only team in the track to build every kind of product.
- 5th Place, Smart Manufacturing League
-
RoboCup German Open 2026
- 4th Place, Smart Manufacturing LeagueFourth of eight teams.
2025
-
RoboCup 2025
- 1st Place, Logistics LeagueEighth Logistics League world championship title, and a new competition points record. The final RCLL season before the league became the Smart Manufacturing League.
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RoboCup German Open 2025
- 1st Place, Logistics League
2024
-
RoboCup 2024
- 2nd Place, Logistics League
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RoboCup German Open 2024
- 2nd Place, Logistics League
2023
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RoboCup 2023
- 2nd Place, Logistics League
-
RoboCup German Open 2023
- 2nd Place, Logistics League
2022
-
RoboCup 2022
- 1st Place, Logistics LeagueSeventh Logistics League world championship title.
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RoboCup German Open 2022
- 2nd Place, Logistics League
Support
Institutions and supporters
The team is based at two Aachen universities and is supported by partners from industry.
Academic institutions
The team is hosted by two Aachen universities.
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MASCOR Institute
-
Knowledge-Based Systems Group, Chair of Machine Learning and Reasoning
Current supporters
Organisations backing the team this season.
-
ifm
The competition
The federation behind RoboCup and its Smart Manufacturing League.
-
RoboCup Federation
Past supporters
Organisations that supported the team in earlier seasons. We remain grateful for it.
-
Magazino
-
igus
Want to join?
We are looking for students from FH Aachen and RWTH Aachen who want to work on perception, navigation, manipulation or reasoning on real hardware. No previous competition experience needed.