ROS robotics news

ROS Industrial releases a 1 Year Montage Video

2013-05-16T18:09:56Z

ROS Industrial has been going for a full year now. Here is a compilation of ROS-Industrial application videos from the first year of the ROS-I repository. See http://ROSindustrial.org and http://consortium.ROSindustrial.org for more info:

Announcing sphero_ros

2013-05-15T04:08:25Z

From Melonee Wise via ros-users@

Hi Everyone,

I put together a stack for the sphero, sphero_ros: https://github.com/mmwise/sphero_ros

The stack includes:

* a standalone sphero python driver with extensive API documentation (http://mmwise.github.io/sphero_ros/api.html#id1)

* standard ros node which provides all the standard goodies, odometry, imu data, tf frames, collision data etc

* a urdf

* bringup with standard launch files to get you started

* documentation! http://mmwise.github.io/sphero_ros/

I only implemented the essentials of the base sphero API so there is room for people to implement more, so if you're interested please contribute and help the stack improve :)

Robot Web Tools Launches

2013-05-15T03:58:57Z

From Russell Toris via ros-users@

Dear Robotics and JavaScript Communities-

It is our pleasure to announce the official launch of the Robot Web Tools organization. Robot Web Tools is a collection of open-source modules and tools for building web-based robot apps.

A variety of routes are available for architecting a robot web application. A common route is building web technologies on an existing robot framework. The Robot Operating System (ROS) is one of the top frameworks to program robots and can run on a variety of robots, from a TurtleBot to a PR2 to an Arduino connected to a computer. ROS - and other robot middleware frameworks - provide common robot functionality, including drivers for interfacing with a variety of sensors and actuators and algorithms for navigation, perception, and manipulation.

While ROS works great for applications on the robot, another layer is needed to connect external devices and applications. rosbridge is both a JSON spec for interacting with ROS and a transport layer, providing a WebSocket for clients to communicate over. In the browser layer sits the core JavaScript libraries: roslibjs, ros2js, and ros3djs. These libraries communicate with ROS on the robot over rosbridge's WebSocket server. It's a lightweight, evented library that provides a convenient abstraction to core ROS functionality.

Robot Web Tools is being spearheaded by five supporting organizations: Brown University, Robert Bosch LLC, Willow Garage Inc., Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Yujin Robot.

The real benefits of the Robot Web Tools organization is JavaScript modules and tools that build off these foundations. With this new effort, we have provided a new website, ample documentation, a new email list, and a collection of tutorials and live demos. We encourage robot and web programmers of all levels to get involved with the community, contribute their projects, and help to grow this emerging technology.

For more information, check us out on our homepage, http://robotwebtools.org/, or see our current projects listed at http://robotwebtools.org/tools.html. Links to tutorials and wiki documentation can be found in repository READMEs located at https://github.com/robotwebtools.

To keep up to date, be sure to subscribe to our Google Group email list at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/robot-web-tools (robot-web-tools@googlegroups.com)

-- Russell Toris, Community Manager & The Robot Web Tools Team

Announcing MoveIt!

2013-05-14T11:40:24Z

From Sachin Chitta via ros-users@

Willow Garage is proud to announce the initial release of MoveIt! : new software targeted at allowing you to build advanced applications integrating motion planning, kinematics, collision checking with grasping, manipulation, navigation, perception, and control. MoveIt! is robot agnostic software that can be quickly set up with your robot if a URDF representation of the robot is available. The MoveIt! Setup Assistant lets you configure MoveIt! for any robot, allowing you to visualize and interact with the robot model quickly.

MoveIt! can incorporate both actual sensor data and simulated models to build an environment representation. Sensor information (3D) can be automatically integrated realtime in the representation of the world that MoveIt! maintains. CAD models can also be imported in the same world representation if desired. Collision-free motion planning, execution and monitoring are core capabilities that MoveIt! provides for any robot. MoveIt! updates its representation of the environment on the fly, enabling reactive motion planning and execution, which is essential for applications in human-robot collaborative environments.

MoveIt! interfaces with controllers through a standard ROS interface, allowing for ease of inter-operability, i.e. the ability to use the same higher-level software with a variety of robots without needing to change code. MoveIt! is architected to be flexible, using a plugin architecture to allow users to integrate their own custom components while still providing out-of-the-box functionality using default implementations. Furthermore, the ROS communication and configuration layer of MoveIt! is separated from core computational components such as motion planning or collision checking, the latter components being provided separately as C++ libraries.

Workspace analysis tools allow robot designers to test out the capabilities of their robot designs before building the hardware, using environment and object specific task specifications to quantify the workspace characteristics of different designs. This reduces costly mistakes and iterations in the design stage. We are actively working on completing the pick and place capabilities in MoveIt!, integrating with object recognition, perception, and grasping to allow manipulators to execute generalized pick and place actions.

Get MoveIt!

More Information about MoveIt!, including instructions on how to get and use it, can be found on the MoveIt! website. MoveIt! is currently an alpha release.

Acknowledgements

Willow Garage gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the following people to MoveIt! and associated packages that MoveIt! uses and depends on:

Lydia Kavraki, Mark Moll, and associated members of the Kavraki Lab (Rice University) for developing OMPL - a suite of randomized planners that MoveIt! uses extensively.
Dinesh Manocha and Jia Pan of UNC Chapel Hill for developing FCL - a package of collision checking algorithm used extensively by MoveIt!
Maxim Likhachev (CMU), Ben Cohen (Penn) and Mike Phillips (CMU) for developing SBPL, a search-based planning library integrated with MoveIt!
Armin Hornung, Kai Wurm, Maren Bennewitz, Cyril Stachniss, and Wolfram Burgard for developing Octomap - software for 3D occupancy mapping used by MoveIt!
Mrinal Kalakrishnan, Peter Pastor and Stefan Schaal at USC for developing STOMP, the distance field components in MoveIt! and the implementation of the CHOMP algorithm in Arm Navigation
Dave Coleman from the University of Colorado, Boulder for developing the MoveIt! Setup Assistant and adding documentation to the MoveIt! website.

MoveIt! evolved from the Arm Navigation and Grasping Pipeline components of ROS and we gratefully acknowledge the seminal contributions of all developers and researchers to those packages, especially Edward Gil Jones, Matei Ciocarlie, Kaijen Hsiao, Adam Leeper, and Ken Anderson.

We also acknowledge the contributions of the Willow Garage interns who have worked on MoveIt!, Arm Navigation and associated components, members of the ROS and PR2 communities who have used, provided feedback and provided contributions to MoveIt! and Arm Navigation and members of the ROS community for developing the infrastructure that MoveIt! builds on.

We also acknowledge the contributions of the ROS-Industrial consortium led by the Southwest Research Institute for supporting and building up infrastructure for applying MoveIt! and Arm Navigation to industrial robots and environments. Similarly, we acknowledge the contributions of Fraunhofer IPA to MoveIt! and support for the ROS-Industrial effort in Europe.

For more information visit moveit.ros.org

Announcing orst-ros-pkg

2013-05-08T09:26:25Z

From Dan Lazewatsky via ros-users@

The Personal Robotics Lab in the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University is proud to announce our repository, orst-ros-pkg. Our current released stacks and packages are:

- http://ros.org/wiki/head_tracking - ROS Wrapper around Fanelli et al.'s Real Time Head Pose Estimation from Consumer Depth Cameras [1]. Provides 6-dof head pose estimation using data from a Kinect or other similar device.

- http://ros.org/wiki/3d_interaction - Contains packages for projecting interfaces into the world, and interacting with those interfaces, as well as utilities for camera-projector calibration, and intersecting rays with various types of world models.

- http://ros.org/wiki/projected_interface_builder - A utility for graphically building projected interfaces to be used with the above stack.

- http://ros.org/wiki/ir_comm - A simple ROS interface to the phidgets_ir board enabling learning IR codes, and using ROS messages to transmit codes.

The above packages were developed as part of the Robots for Humanity Project [2].

- http://ros.org/wiki/rostop_gui - RQT plugin for monitoring ROS processes, similar to Ubuntu's System Monitor.

[1] Fanelli et al.'s Real Time Head Pose Estimation from Consumer Depth Cameras. 33rd Annual Symposium of the German Association for Pattern Recognition (DAGM'11), 2011.

[2] Chen, T.L.; Ciocarlie, M.; Cousins, S.; Grice, P.M.; Hawkins, K.; Kaijen Hsiao; Kemp, C.C.; Chih-Hung King; Lazewatsky, D.A.; Leeper, A.E.; Hai Nguyen; Paepcke, A.; Pantofaru, C.; Smart, W.D.; Takayama, L., "Robots for humanity: using assistive robotics to empower people with disabilities," Robotics & Automation Magazine, IEEE , vol.20, no.1, pp.30,39, March 2013

ROS Industrial presents Basic Developer's Class

2013-04-25T21:07:36Z

Event Title: ROS-Industrial Basic Developer's Class June 4-6, 2013

Event Description: We are delighted to invite you to attend the ROS-Industrial Basic Developer's Training class, which will be held June 4-6, at Southwest Research Institute, in San Antonio, TX. The class will provide a hands-on introduction to ROS and ROS-Industrial, and it will culminate with hardware integration exercises with live industrial robots and peripherals. The class is FREE to Full/Associate Members of the ROS-Industrial Consortium. Others may attend for a fee. For your convenience, we are also offering for you to purchase the preconfigured small form factor ROS-I PC that you will use during the class. To learn more about the class, please browse to the website: http://rosindustrial.org/ric/events.htm

New BRIDE release 0.2.0

2013-04-15T17:27:42Z

From Alex Bubeck of Fraunhofer IPA via ros-users@

Hi ros-users and bride-users,

I would like to announce the new release of BRIDE for ROS.

In addition to multiple small fixes these are the new features of the 0.2.0 release:

* Graphical creation of System models: Components can now be added graphically to the system model. No xml hacking any more!

* Coordinator development: You can develop state machines in BRIDE now, so called Coordinator Components. They make use of the Capability Components in you system by triggering actionservers or serviceclients. The Coordinator models are code generated into SMACH components and appear as regular components in the system diagram.

* Action support in code generation: ActionServers are now auto-generated. Only the execution_callback has to be implemented in the user code in the corresponding user_code section.

* Standalone compiler: In the bride_compiler package there is a standalone compiler to use the code generation without Eclipse. Code generation can also be triggered by running "make regen" in the terminal for updating after changes in the model.

As the templates are in the separate bride_templates package, it is now easier to recommend changes in the templates and improve them in smaller iterations.

As usual the installation instructions are on the http://www.ros.org/wiki/bride/ wiki page and the updated tutorials are athttp://www.ros.org/wiki/bride/Tutorials/. The binary releases are currently in the build pipeline and should be available soon.

Feel free to give feedback directly, by mailing-list or post bugs and feature requests at https://github.com/ipa320/bride/issues.

OSRF has been accepted for Google Summer of Code 2013!

2013-04-10T18:47:57Z

Cross posted from osrfoundation.org

OSRF folks know that students love Open Source software, Robotics and flip flops. If you would like to expose to real-world software development during the summer, contribute to Gazebo, ROS or CloudSim projects, and be engaged with the Robotics community while get paid, check out the GSoC 2013 [1] and the OSRF dedicated site [2]. We have created an ideas page [3] with some potential projects. Feel free to ask questions and propose suggestions at gsoc2013@osrfoundation.org. The student application period starts on April 22. Be ready for a Robotics coding summer!.

[1] http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2013
[2] http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org/google/gsoc2013/osrf
[3] http://wiki.osrfoundation.org/gsoc13

New Package: trajopt trajectory optimization software for motion planning

2013-04-08T19:13:50Z

From John Schulman at UC Berkley via ros-users@

Hi all,

I'm announcing the release of trajopt, a library for trajectory optimization. More specifically, trajopt is designed for planning collision-free paths for robot arms and mobile manipulators.

Trajopt is built on top of OpenRAVE. You can define your optimization problem in Python or C++ in JSON format and then call the optimizer.

Some highlights of trajopt:

- It's fast. It solves arm planning problems in simple environments in about 150ms (converging to a locally optimal solution)

- It reliably finds collision-free paths, especially with multiple initializations. FWIW it solves 100% (204/204) of problems in our benchmark collection

- It performs well on very high-dof problems, e.g. jointly optimizing over the arms and base of a mobile manipulator, or optimizing over all of the joints of a humanoid robot.

- A wide variety different costs and constraints are implemented. (Pose constraints, velocity constraints, static stability, and more.) You can write your own cost and constraint functions in python or C++.

Source code: https://github.com/joschu/trajopt

Documentation: http://rll.berkeley.edu/trajopt

The technical details are described in a paper, which is linked to on the front page of the documentation.

This code is at an early stage of development. I'd be grateful to hear about any problems, questions, or comments.

New Package: arl_ardrone_examples

2013-04-04T08:31:34Z

From Parker Conroy via ROS Users

Hi ros-users,

I'd like to add this package (https://github.com/parcon/arl_ardrone_examples) to the known software list.

This basic release is designed to help roboticists and hobbyist new to the AR drone quickly be able to command the robot. A variety of simple nodes are included to show users how to takeoff, land, reset, and fly the AR drone. Nodes for the purposes of helping users use the cameras will be included soon in a update.

~Thank you
Parker Conroy

New Package: ros_matlab_bridge, the rosjava approach

2013-04-03T08:30:01Z

From Tingfan via ROS Users

Hi all,

Here's a prototype of matlab_bridge built on top of rosjava.
Thanks to automatic code generation in rosjava and native java support
in matlab.
I don't have to deal with dynamic linking problems as typical
mex-function approach would encounter.
The result is a cross-platform ros_matlab_bridge.

http://code.google.com/p/mplab-ros-pkg/wiki/java_matlab_bridge

The current implementation depends on an old version of rosjava (Jan 2012).
I was wondering if it worth the effort to rewrite the code to catch up
with the new rosjava APIs.
Comments welcome.

Thank you very much.
-Tingfan

A New Robot Joins the ROS Community

2013-04-02T20:06:04Z

Over the past few years ROS has grown incredibly fast. ROS support now exists

for a wide range of robots, such as manipulators, UAV's, surface vessels, ground

vehicles, humanoids, and many more. With Clearpath Robotics' introduction of

Grizzly, a whole new category of robots is added to ROS: the Robotics Utility

Vehicle.

Designed for the most aggressive of agriculture, mining and defense robotics

research programs, Grizzly is an ATV-sized robotic platform built to perform

like a tractor with the precision of an industrial robot. It can pull a plow, carry

a massive 600 kg payload, and mount a wide range of standard utility vehicle

accessories.

Grizzly is a ROS-native robot, allowing users to pull from a huge resource of

information and code, as well as cooperate with a fast growing community of

experts. Using ROS also allows code to be ported from one robot to another,

enabling you to take your lab research into the field quickly and easily.

Grizzly is aptly named. This bot is equipped with an extremely powerful drivetrain

delivering a maximum drawbar pull of 6300 N (1400 lbf). It can survive the

toughest tests, providing modularity while maintaining the rugged and robust

design, which has become a Clearpath trademark. With 26" all-terrain tires and

an oscillating front axle, Grizzly can conquer large obstacles with all four wheels

securely on the ground. It also offers top of the line control system performance.

Independent high power DC motors with individual closed loop control give fine

control even in the toughest terrain, while high resolution encoders and an array

of internal sensors provide detailed feedback on the robot's state.

ROS welcomes Grizzly to the community!

If you're looking for more information, check out the Clearpath Robotics Grizzly

website.

ROS to be hosted by the Open Source Lab at Oregon State University

2013-04-01T18:56:35Z

We're pleased to announce that the ROS project will soon be hosted by Oregon State University's Open Source Lab (OSL) (http://osuosl.org/). The OSL provides services to many open source communities. We are pleased to join the ranks of projects like Drupal and kernel.org. We'd like to thank Willow Garage for providing hosting and infrastructure for the entire ROS community for over 5 years.

We'd also like to thank Lance Albertson, Carlos Jensen, and Bill Smart for welcoming us to the OSL. We look forward to working with Oregon State and the OSL to provide ongoing hosting as well as exploring ways to improve ROS infrastructure for the greater community.

In the coming weeks, we'll migrate the wiki, ROS Answers, and the Ubuntu package repository from Willow Garage to the OSL. We'll announce more detailed plans as they come together and we'll do our best to minimize disruptions during the migration.

As you might imagine, hosting for these critical services, which are heavily used around the world and around the clock, costs money. We need your help! A big thank you to the ROS-Industrial Consortium, which has stepped up to support part of this cost. If your organization can financially support ROS project hosting, please contact us at info@osrfoundation.org.

New Repositories from Robotnik

2013-03-31T08:25:24Z

From Román Navarro García of Robotnik via ROS Users

Hi ROS community!

After some weeks at work, we are glad to announce that we have two more repositories available:

-wsg50-ros-pkg: A repository that contains the ROS driver for the real and simulated version of the Weiss Robotics WSG 50 gripper (http://code.google.com/p/wsg50-ros-pkg/).

-robotnik-powerball-ros-pkg: A repository that includes the necessary files for the Schunk Powerball simulation. We can control it sending commands directly to the controller topic or via a PS3 pad. Currently it supports Cartesian/Euler operation. (http://code.google.com/p/robotnik-powerball-ros-pkg/)

Furthermore, we have updated our Guardian repository (http://code.google.com/p/guardian-ros-pkg/) to be able to simulate the robot in ROS Fuerte version. We have included the URDF and the launch files to represent our new mobile manipulators, the GBALL (composed by a Guardian integrating the two previous packages). GWAM robot (a Guardian integrating the Barret WAM arm) is already available and will be uploaded soon.

Please add the Google Code repositories to the index.

Best regards,

Román Navarro

New Package: ROS package for Element microcontroller

2013-03-29T08:33:12Z

From Patrick Goebel via ROS Users

Hello ROS users,

I have released a new package for the Element microcontroller made by cmRobot. Details and source code can be found at:

Documentation: http://www.ros.org/wiki/element
Source: svn http://pi-robot-ros-pkg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/element

(The source link should appear on the Wiki page on the next indexing.)

Features of the package include:

Support for a wide variety of commonly used sensors including sonar (Ping, MaxEZ1), infrared (Sharp GP2D12), temperature, current, and voltage (Phidgets), speech (Devantech SP03), compass (Devantech CMPS03), as well as generic digital and analog sensors.
Onboard PID controller and dual H-Bridges for driving a differential drive robot
One bipolar stepper motor
Support for controlling up to six hobby servos
Sensors are polled using a multi-threaded queue and can each run at their own rate
Connects to a PC or SBC using USB, XBee or TTL

--patrick