Winning ARIAC 2020 by KISSing The BEAR: Keeping things simple in Best Effort Agile Robotics

Abstract In this paper we discuss our evolved understanding on the meaning of agile robotics. The lessons learned are concluded from the four years of our participation in ARIAC, the Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition, that we managed to win in 2020. After elaborating on ARIAC tasks, challenges and scoring and their consequences on algorithm design, error handling and software development processes and methodologies, we introduce the concept of Best Effort Agile Robotics (BEAR). The conclusions are mapped to agility standardization directions. The concept of Best Effort Robotics (BER) is also proposed and discussed, highlighting the similarities with best effort networking, a proven concept in Internet technology.