Access to regular sports competitions is often precluded for disabled people. Chess, which has been recognized as a sport by the International Olympic Committee in 1999, is a rare exception. Nevertheless, to compete in official tournaments, people suffering from a high level of motor impairment must rely on the assistance of a person to move their pieces on the chessboard, under their indications. This can result in a reduction of the feeling of independence and self-esteem. In this work, a service robot is employed as an assistant for competitive chess players, moving pieces on a standard chessboard for competitions, and adhering to the rules of the international chess federation (e.g. not relying on a custom sensorized chess-set). The robot is controlled through an intuitive graphical user interface. The user interface can be navigated with easy-to-use devices, such as a mouse, a touchpad, or a commodity joystick for motion-impaired people (Ottobock calibratable Mini joystick). An effective framework for the opponent’s move identification from RGB-D images is proposed and used to keep track of the live game situation. The application is implemented in ROS on a PAL Robotics TIAGo robot, a service robot with a 7 degrees-of-freedom arm, an extensible torso, and a re-orientable RGB-D camera. The robustness of the application is tested by reproducing six famous chess games several times on a standard wooden competition chessboard, making TIAGo play on behalf of the player with white or black pieces, alternatively. The application is properly working without the need of operator intervention in the \(91.6\%\) of the performed moves. The proposed approach successfully opens the door to independent competitive chess playing for motor disabled people in official tournaments.

残疾人常常无法参加定期的体育比赛。国际象棋是一个罕见的例外，于1999年被国际奥委会承认为一项运动。然而，为了参加正式比赛，患有严重运动障碍的人必须依靠人的帮助才能根据自己的指示在棋盘上移动棋子。这可能会导致独立感和自尊感降低。在这项工作中，服务机器人被用作国际象棋棋手的助手，在标准棋盘上移动棋子进行比赛，并遵守国际国际象棋联合会的规则（例如不依赖定制的传感国际象棋）。该机器人通过直观的图形用户界面进行控制。用户界面可以通过易于使用的设备进行导航，例如鼠标、触摸板或适合运动障碍人士的商品操纵杆（奥托博克可校准迷你操纵杆）。提出了一种从 RGB-D 图像中识别对手动作的有效框架，并用于跟踪实时比赛情况。该应用程序在 PAL Robotics TIAGo 机器人上的 ROS 中实现，这是一款具有 7 自由度手臂、可伸展躯干和可重新定向 RGB-D 相机的服务机器人。通过在标准木制竞赛棋盘上多次重现六种著名的国际象棋比赛来测试该应用程序的鲁棒性，使TIAGo代表玩家交替使用白棋或黑棋。应用程序可以正常工作，无需操作员干预执行的移动的\(91.6\%\) 。所提出的方法成功地为运动障碍人士在官方锦标赛中独立进行国际象棋比赛打开了大门。