Announcing the first release of RAPP Platform and RAPP API [v0.5.5]

Dear all,

We are happy to announce the first open-source versions of RAPP Platform and RAPP API, oriented to provide an online platform for delivering ready-to-use generic cloud services to robots!

RAPP is a 3-year research project (2013-2016) funded by the European Commission through its FP7 programme, which provides an open source software platform to support the creation and delivery of robotic applications. Its technical objectives include the development of an infrastructure for developers of robotic applications, so they can easily build and include machine learning and personalization techniques to their applications, the creation of a repository from which robots can download Robotic Applications (RApps) and upload useful monitoring information, as well as developing a methodology for knowledge representation and reasoning in robotics and automation. More information on RAPP can be found at http://rapp-project.eu/.

One of the most important parts of RAPP is the RAPP Platform, along with the RAPP API. RAPP Platform is a collection of ROS nodes and back-end processes that aim to provide generic web services to robots. The main concept of RAPP Platform aligns with the cloud robotics approach. RAPP Platform is divided in two main parts: the RAPP ROS nodes and the RAPP Web services.

• The RAPP ROS nodes are back-end processes providing generic functionality, such as Image processing, Audio processing, Speech synthesis & Automatic speech recognition (ASR), Ontology & Database operations, as well as Machine Learning algorithms.

• The RAPP Web services are the front-end of the RAPP Platform. These expose specific RAPP Platform functionalities to the world, thus any robot can invoke specific algorithms, simplifying the work of developers. The developed web services utilize HOP, a language dedicated to programming reactive and dynamic applications on the web.

Finally, RAPP API is the software means to invoke a RAPP Platform service via C++, Python or JavaScript from any computational system (either in-robots or standalone such as PCs and laptops).

Links of interest:

• RAPP Platform GitHub repository: https://github.com/rapp-project/rapp-platform

• RAPP Platform wiki: https://github.com/rapp-project/rapp-platform/wiki

• RAPP API GitHub repository: https://github.com/rapp-project/rapp-api

• RAPP Platform documentation page: http://rapp-project.github.io/rapp-platform/

• HOP website: http://hop.inria.fr/home/index.html