Abstract
Robotics competitions are environments that foster teamwork, AI, and technology development by encouraging students, researchers, and academics to test their solutions against each other. These competitions often challenge the competitors' prototypes with tasks specifically designed to benchmark them with the current optimal solutions. During the prototype stages of a robot, the development costs and time spent are often higher than other stages, as changes in the prototype are frequent. Simulation is often used to reduce these variables as it allows flexibility in all development stages before transitioning to the real scenario. However, a digital twin can be used to increase even further flexibility and effectiveness. Digital twins are virtual representations of real assets, providing replication and prediction of real scenario events, and real-time monitoring of the real object. Thus, this paper presents the development of a digital twin of an automatic guided vehicle (AGV) to the Robot@Factory Lite competition and the tests performed to validate the approach.

Abstract
Industrial Manipulators were becoming used more and more at industries since the third industrial revolution. Actually, with the fourth one, the paradigm is changing and the collaborative robots are being accepted for the community. It means that smaller manipulators with more functionalities have been used and installed. New approaches have appeared to teach students according to the new robot’s capabilities. The DOBOT robot is an example of that since it captivates the student’s attention with an uncomplicated programming front-end, tools, grippers and extremely useful for teaching STEM. This paper proposes a dynamic based simulation environment that can be used to teach, test and validate solutions to the DOBOT robot. By this way, the student can try and validate, at their homework without the real robot, the developed solutions and further test them at the laboratory with the real robot. Currently, remote testing and validation without the use of a real robot is an advantage. The comparison of the provided simulation environment and the real robot is presented in the approach. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Abstract
Robotics competitions encourage the development of solutions to new challenges that emerge in sync with the rise of Industry 4.0. In this context, robotic simulators are employed to facilitate the development of these solutions by disseminating knowledge in robotics, Education 4.0, and STEM. The RobotAtFactory 4.0 competition arises to promote improvements in industrial challenges related to autonomous robots. The official organization provides the simulation scene of the competition through the open-source SimTwo simulator. This paper aims to integrate the SiwTwo simulator with the Robot Operating System (ROS) middleware by developing a framework. This integration facilitates the design of robotic systems since ROS has a vast repository of packages that address common problems in robotics. Thus, competitors can use this framework to develop their solutions through ROS, allowing the simulated and real systems to be integrated.

Abstract
The urge for robust and reliable localization systems for autonomous mobile robots (AMR) is increasing since the demand for these automated systems is rising in service, industry, and other areas of the economy. The localization of AMRs is one of the crucial challenges, and several approaches exist to solve this. The most well-known localization systems are based on LiDAR data due to their reliability, accuracy, and robustness. One standard method is to match the reference map information with the actual readings from LiDAR or camera sensors, allowing localization to be performed. However, this approach has difficulties handling anything that does not belong to the original map since it affects the matching algorithm's performance. Therefore, they should be considered outliers. In this paper, a deep learning-based object detection algorithm is not only used for detection but also to classify them as outliers from the localization's perspective. This is an innovative approach to improve the localization results in a realmobile platform. Results are encouraging, and the proposed methodology is being tested in a real robot.

Abstract
Robotic competitions are an excellent way to promote innovative solutions for the current industries' challenges and entrepreneurial spirit, acquire technical and transversal skills through active teaching, and promote this area to the public. In other words, since robotics is a multidisciplinary field, its competitions address several knowledge topics, especially in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) category, that are shared among the students and researchers, driving further technology and science. A new competition encompassed in the Portuguese Robotics Open was created according to the Industry 4.0 concept in the production chain. In this competition, RobotAtFactory 4.0, a shop floor, is used to mimic a fully automated industrial logistics warehouse and the challenges it brings. Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) must be used to operate without supervision and perform the tasks that the warehouse requests. There are different types of boxes which dictate their partial and definitive destinations. In this reasoning, AMRs should identify each and transport them to their destinations. This paper describes an approach to the indoor localization system for the competition based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and ArUco markers. Different innovation methods for the obtained observations were tested and compared in the EKF. A real robot was designed and assembled to act as a test bed for the localization system's validation. Thus, the approach was validated in the real scenario using a factory floor with the official specifications provided by the competition organization.

Abstract
Life in society has initiated a search for comfort and security in social centers. This search generated revolutions within the knowledge about the technologies involved, making the environments automated and integrated. Along with this increase, ecological concerns have also arisen, which have been involved since the design of intelligent buildings, remaining through the years of their use. Based on these two pillars, the present study aims to monitor three central systems inside the apartments of the Apolo Building (Braganca city, Portugal). The electrical energy consumption, water flow, and waste disposal systems are integrated through a single database. The data is sent remotely via WiFi through the microcontroller. For better visualization and analytics of the data, a web application is also developed, which allows for real-time monitoring. The obtained results demonstrate to the consumer his behavior regarding household expenses. The idea of showing the consumer their expenditure is to create an ecological awareness. Through the data collected and the environmental alternatives found, it is possible to observe whether there was a behavior change when receiving this data, either in the short or long term.