Our own Brian Gerkey is speaking today at Solid 2014 in San Francisco. In his talk, Brian will introduce the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), present in detail the cloud-hosted Virtual Robotics Challenge component of the DRC, and discuss opportunities for the resulting open source simulation software to be an ongoing platform for robotics research, education, design, and product development.
Gzweb for Mobile Platforms
Gzweb Mobile from OSRF on Vimeo.
During her Gnome Outreach Program for Women internship with OSRF, Louise Poubel made Gzweb work on mobile platforms by designing a mobile-friendly interface and implementing lighter graphics. Until recently, Gazebo was only accessible on the desktop. Gzweb, Gazebo’s web client, allows visualization of simulations in a web browser.
Louise implemented the graphics using WebGL. The interface includes menus suitable for mobile devices and multi-touch interactions to navigate the 3D scene. Louise conducted usability tests throughout the development phase in order to improve user experience and quickly discover and resolve bugs.
To optimize 3D rendering performance on mobile platforms, she also implemented a mesh simplifcation tool which allows users to choose how much to simplify 3D models in the database during the deployment stage and generate coarse versions of meshes to be used by gzweb.
Mobile devices have been, and will continue to be, a big part of our lives. With Gzweb Mobile, users can visualize simulations on mobile phones and tablets and interact with the scene, inserting shapes and moving models around.
References:
http://www.gazebosim.org
Gzweb wiki
Repositories:
Gzweb Bitbucket repository
OSRF at FIRST competition in St Louis
Our own Nate Koenig is at the FIRST regional competition today and tomorrow in St. Louis. The kids are enjoying trying out the Gazebo simulation of the FIRST competition arena, which includes a forklift-equipped robot and some objects to interact with:
This simulation environment is being beta-tested with a few teams now. We hope that Gazebo will be available to all FIRST teams next year.
And of course our immersive virtual reality demo that combines Gazebo with the Oculus Rift headset and the Razer Hydra controller remains a hit:
CloudSim-Ed: A Robotics MOOC Prototype
CloudSim-Ed from OSRF on Vimeo.
During her Gnome Outreach Program for Women internship with OSRF, Ana Marian Pedro worked on CloudSim-Ed a prototype for a massive open online robotics course built with Google CourseBuilder. The course offers simulation tasks and challenges created with CloudSim, Gazebo and ROS.
To enroll in a course, a student must have a Google account and basic CloudSim credentials. CloudSim simulators are controlled from a custom module in CourseBuilder to launch simulation challenges and retrieve the score. When a challenge is launched, the Gazebo simulation world is viewed through a web interface, while an IPython notebook provides the means to interact with the simulated robot using ROS commands.
This project intends to provide students with a means to learn robotics using open source software. For schools with limited robotics laboratory space and equipment, the simulated worlds and environments give students a chance to experiment with minimal setup time and effort. This will hopefully reduce the time used in software troubleshooting when dealing with actual robot hardware.
References:
http://www.ros.org
http://www.gazebosim.org
http://cloudsim.io
https://code.google.com/p/course-builder/
Repositories:
https://bitbucket.org/ammpedro/cloudsim-ed-actuation
https://bitbucket.org/ammpedro/cloudsim-ed-web
https://sunlit-vortex-449.appspot.com/course
Happy National Robotics Week!
All of us at OSRF would like to wish everyone a happy National Robotics Week! There are events celebrating all things robotic all week long throughout the U.S. A full list of events can be found here. The folks at RoboWeek 2014 have even created some cool robot trading cards. Come and get ’em here. At least two of them are running ROS!
Closer to home, OSRF will be taking part in the Silicon Valley Robot Block Party. We will be among the many cool robotics companies showing off their wares. The event is this Wednesday, April 9, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm at WilmerHale in Palo Alto. Robot Block Party is a free event open to the public, so go ahead and spread the word.
And for those of you who can’t make it Wednesday, or simply can’t get enough of OSRF and ROS, please look for us on Thursday at Xconomy’s Robo Madness 2014. Hosted by Xconomy’s Wade Roush, Robo Madness takes place at SRI International from 1:00 to 5:40 pm so get yourself signed up right away. Our own Brian Gerkey will be on stage at 1:25 discussing ROS, and then again at 5:20 on a wrap-up panel discussion moderated by John Markoff of The New York Times.
HERE mapping cars run ROS
As reported at HERE Three Sixty, their global fleet of hundreds of mapping cars is running ROS!
They carry laser range-finders, cameras, and GPS that are used to estimate the vehicle’s posisiton and gather 3-D pictures of the surrounding environment. That data gets shipped back to their headquarters for processing.
As HERE’s Michael Prados put it, “The system of sensors and computers means the software that’s needed is very like that which is used to create robots.” So they decided to build their cars’ software on ROS. The software runs on a headless server in the car’s interior, with the driver interacting via a mobile application on a tablet that he or she can operate easily from the seat.
“We chose the open source ROS because it was the best solution, hands-down,” Michael concludes. “And now we’re looking into the ways that we might give back to OSRF, and help its future success.”
Read the whole story at HERE Three Sixty.
ROS…launch!
Update (March 13): The launch has been delayed to the end of March.
Albert II is famous for being the first monkey in space, in June 1949. Laika is equally renowned for being the first animal to orbit the Earth, in 1957. On Sunday, March 16th, at 4:41am (unless inclement weather intervenes), ROS will celebrate its own celestial milestone when it is launched into space aboard a SpaceX rocket as part of a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
In conjunction with NASA’s Robot Rocket Rally March 14-16 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SpaceX’s third mission will include a set of robotic legs for the Robonaut 2 (R2) humanoid torso that is currently aboard the ISS. Once those legs are attached to R2, ROS will officially be running in space.
For the last few years, the NASA/GM team at the Johnson Space Center has been using ROS for R2 development here on Earth. We first heard about that at ROSCon 2012 in Stephen Hart’s keynote presentation, where he described how they combine ROS and OROCOS RTT to achieve flexible, real-time control of R2. Following the launch this weekend, that open source software will be running on the R2 that’s on ISS.
The R2 team also uses the open source Gazebo simulator to simulate R2 when they’re doing development and testing. They’ve released their models of R2 and ISS as open source for the community to work with. We recently integrated those models into an immersive teleoperation Gazebo demonstration that we’ll be running at the Robot Rocket Rally this weekend. Drop by our booth and find out what it’s like to “be” Robonaut 2!
ROS has already powered robots in the air, on the ground, on and under the water, and on every continent, but we at OSRF couldn’t be more excited about ROS journeying to outer space.
OSRF in the Google Summer of Code v2014
The summer is well known for school holidays, baths in paradisiacal beaches, mojitos, … but nothing comparable to a Summer of Code! OSRF is participating in the 10th Anniversary of Google Summer of Code.
Do you want to spend your summer doing real-world software development, contributing to robotics projects like Gazebo, ROS, and CloudSim, and engaging with the global robotics community, all while getting paid? Then check out our GSoC 2014 site. You’ll also want to read through our ideas page, which lists projects that we’re interested in. Feel free to ask questions and propose suggestions at gsoc@localhost. The student application period starts March 10th. Get ready for a robotics coding summer!.
OSRF at the Robot Rocket Rally and SpaceX Launch!
Next week, OSRF will be at the Robot Rocket Rally at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral! Stop by our booth between Friday, March 14 and Sunday, March 16th to try out one (or both!) of our Oculus Rift demos. Teleoperate a simulated version of NASA’s Robonaut-2 in the International Space Station, or try your hand at clearing rubble with the Atlas robot. You may have seen the Atlas robot compete in the recent DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials in Homestead, Florida.
The Robot Rocket Rally celebrates “the latest in robotic technology from NASA, industry leaders and universities.” The event coincides with the SpaceX launch that is delivering robotic legs to the Robonaut-2 aboard the ISS, along with life-sustaining supplies for those humans aboard.
Stop by our booth to play with the demos, have a chat, or pick up some stickers. Look for us in the big tent in the Rocket Garden!
ROS Kong 2014 Announced
Cross posted from ROS Blog
We’re pleased to announce that we will be hosting ROS Kong 2014, an international ROS users group meeting, in Hong Kong on June 6th, immediately following ICRA. This one-day event will complement ROSCon 2014, which will happen later in the year (see below).
ROS Kong 2014 will feature invited speakers, lightning talks, and Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. There will be plenty of time to meet other ROS users both from Asia and around the world.
If you are interested in attending, please save the date: Friday June 6th, 2014. We will be setting up registration and distributing more information in the coming month. We have a large auditorium but registration will be limited.
If you have any questions or are interested in sponsoring the event please contact us at roskong-2014-oc@localhost.
In related news, we are tentatively planning to hold ROSCon 2014 in Chicago in September, in conjunction with IROS. Stay tuned for more on that event.
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