March 2015 Archives

New book: "ROS Robot Programing" in Korean

By Tully Foote on March 26, 2015 5:10 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
From Yoonseok Pyo via ros-users@


Hello ROS users,

I am pleased to announce a new book "ROS Robot Programing", which will be released by RubyPaper in this month.
It is the first guide book for ROS in Non-English languages.
I hope to bring up new ROS contributors in Korean, even if this book is written in Korean.
Also, I'll donate the whole royalty from this book to OSRF and open-source robotics platform projects(oroca.org). 

ROS_ROBOT_PROGRAMING.png

The contents of this book is as follows:

1. ROS, Robot Operating System
2. Installing the ROS in Desktop PC
3. Installing the ROS in VirtualBox and SBC like RaspberryPi
4. ROS Term, Communication, File and Build System, Build and Running
5. ROS Commands
6. ROS Tool (RViz, rqt)
7. ROS Basic Programing (Message, Topic, Service, Parameter)
8. Robot and Sensor on ROS
9. How to Use the Sensors on ROS
10. How to Use the Mobile Robot on ROS (Turtlebot)
11. SLAM and Navigation
12. Robot Arm (Dynamixel Servo, MoveIt!)
total pages: 392

More information about this book can be found on ROS wiki page.

Announcing Social Robot Maggie working with ROS

By Tully Foote on March 26, 2015 2:00 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
From Raúl Pérula-Martínez via ros-users@

Hello ROS community,

I have the pleasure to present a new robot in the ROS family. The Social Robot Maggie (http://roboticslab.uc3m.es/roboticslab/robot/maggie) from the RoboticsLab (http://roboticslab.uc3m.es/roboticslab/) at University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, is working now completely with ROS.

Here the ROS wiki page for more info:

http://wiki.ros.org/Robots/Maggie

Furthermore, we would love to share what we have developed with the ROS community. We have published several packages in GitHub and soon we show some videos on how it is working.

Here the repository:

https://github.com/UC3MSocialRobots

Until now, we have released everything developed for the low-level of the robot. These nodes control the devices (motors, touch sensors, labjack controller, IR controller, servomotors, RFID, etc.) of the robot. And almost everything is implemented with unit tests and testing nodes.

We hope that our work could be useful for the community.

Robotics @ Seoul Tech Society

By Tully Foote on March 22, 2015 11:03 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
From Daniel Stonier via ros-users@

For ROS aficionados in South Korea, there is a seoul tech meetup on March 24th with a few roboticists presenting what is the first of hopefully a series of talks. 

Good chance to catch up and talk with some roboticists over a beer after the talks, or meet some of the next generation in seoul's tech community.

You can sign up here.

Announcing a ROS driver for CH Robotics UM7 IMU

By Tully Foote on March 20, 2015 10:41 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
From Alex Brown via ros-users@

I'd like to announce the availability of a ROS driver for the CHRobotics.com  UM7 Inertial Orientation sensor (IMU).  The UM7 is an up-to-date device with quite good performance.

You can see its specs at http://www.chrobotics.com/shop/um7-orientation-sensor.  The driver documentation is at http://wiki.ros.org/um7.

OpenHAB bridge - Combines ROS with Home Automation

By Tully Foote on March 19, 2015 5:06 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
There is now a ROS  package which provides a bridge between ROS and the OpenHAB home automation system.
OpenHAB is an open source system that connects to virtually any intelligent device, such as smoke detectors, motion detectors, temperature sensors, security systems, TV/audio, fingerprint scanners, lighting, 1-Wire, Wemo, CUPS, DMX, KNX, openpaths, Bluetooth, MQTT, Z-Wave, telephony, Insteon, weather sensors.  OpenHAB also connects to web services such as Twitter, Weather, etc. In addtion, ROS provides a basic Web GUI and Iphone/Android app for setting and dynamically viewing values.  openhab.org/features
Give your robot knowledge of the wider world
Use Cases:
  • A motion detector or smoke detector in OpenHAB triggers and ROS dispatches the robot to the location.
  • ROS facial recognition recognizes a face at the door and OpenHAB unlocks the door.
  • A Washing Machine indicates to OpenHAB that the load is complete
    and ROS dispatches a robot to move 
    the laundry to the dryer.
  • The OpenHAB MQTT binding indicates that Sarah will be home soon and a sensor indicates that the temperature is hot. ROS dispatches the robot to bring Sarah's favorite beer. OpenHAB turns on her favorite rock music and lowers the house temperature.
  • A user clicks on the OpenHAB GUI on an IPAD and selects a new room location for the robot for telepresence. The message is forwarded by the openhab_bridge to ROS and ROS dispatches the robot.
  • A sentry robot enters a dark area and sends a command to OpenHAB to turn on the lights in that area.
With the openhab_bridge, virtually any home automation device can be easily setup to publish updates to the openhab_updates topic in ROS, giving a ROS robot knowledge of any Home Automation device as well as a number of web services. ROS can publish to the openhab_set topic and the device in OpenHAB will be set to the new value (for example setting a Robots position in OpenHAB).  ROS can also publish to the openhab_command topic and the device in OpenHAB will  act on the specified command (for example turning on a light).
To download and for more information:

Announcing Rhoeby - a ROS Navigation-capable hexapod robot

By Tully Foote on March 18, 2015 4:31 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
From John Jordan via ros-users@

I am pleased to announce "Rhoeby", a new ROS-enabled hexapod robot. Rhoeby
is a customized version of the Robotis Bioloid kit. It uses low-cost,
light-weight 2D Scanning technology available from Rhoeby Dynamics (based
on the TeraRanger 1DOF sensor), and supports SLAM, Navigation and Obstacle
Avoidance.




Hardware Used

  * Robotis Bioloid "Spider" chassis (with custom legs)
  * Robotis Cm9.04 MCU board
  * Nexus 4 phone provides IMU (and tele-prescence camera)
  * Rhoeby Dynamics 2D Infra-Red LiDAR Scanner
  * Bluetooth link to robot for command and status
  * Remote laptop running ROS Indigo

Software Features

  * 3-DOF Inverse Kinematic leg control
  * Holonomic-capable gait
  * Odometric feedback
  * 2D LiDAR scanning
  * ROS node for robot control

If interested, you could find more information at:

    http://wiki.ros.org/Robots/Rhoeby

And see our website at:

    http://wwww.rhoeby.com

Robot Construction Kit (Rock) Workshop - Call for Proposals

By Tully Foote on March 17, 2015 11:46 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
From Javier Hidalgo via ros-users@

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
--------------------------------
Dear colleagues,

We would like to invite you to participate in the first Robot Construction Kit (Rock) Workshop:

http://rock-robotics.org

In parallel to the 13th Symposium on Advanced Space Technologies in Robotics and Automation (ASTRA) at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) and the Experts Forum on Robot Control Operating Systems (RCOS) for space and industrial applications.

http://www.congrexprojects.com/2015-events/15a07/introduction

Noordwijk (The Netherlands) 11 May 2015.

It will consist of 20-30 minutes presentations concerning technical talks from developers and users in a similar style of ROSCon and PyCon.

Theme:

Development, tutorials and robotics field application using Rock/Orocos are welcome to contribute. Sustainable systems, scalability, re-usability, field/ real-time applications, system deployment, plan managers, rock integration with existing systems, communication layers, error handling, system recovery and other topics concerning the use and development of Rock/Orocos in robotics are relevant to participate.

Proposal submission:

Technical talks of all topics related to Rock/Orocos are invited to participate in the workshop. Best workshop talk will be awarded!

Proposal submission deadline: 1 April 2015

Notification of Acceptance: 17 April 2015

Further info http://blog.rock-robotics.org/post/111271093400/rock-workshop-2015 

        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
Summer Internship at 5D Robotics

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March 16, 2015 10:48 AM
    
            

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            From Johathan Whetten via ros-users@


You have a unique opportunity. Robotics is a new frontier, and every new 
frontier needs its explorers. We need you. We need you to be passionate 
and tireless. We need you to eat, breathe, and dream robotics.

Peruse the items listed below. You should either have experience with and/or interest in all of them.
  • Control systems
  • Computer vision
  • Sensor fusion / adaptive filters
  • Motion planning
  • Behavioral robotics
  • Probabilistic robotics
  • Human-machine interaction
  • Embedded systems
  • Aerial systems
  • 3D graphics

You will need to know Linux, you will need to know C++, and you will need 
to use ROS. This position requires breadth and adaptability over depth. 
Please send your resume and cover letter to info@5drobotics.com.

        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
Navigation Engineer Position at Rapyuta Robotics

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March 13, 2015 12:40 AM
    
            

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From Daiki Maekawa via ros-users@

We are recruiting colleagues to work together with us.

At Rapyuta Robotics we're developing the next generation of low-cost, cloud-connected robotic systems. We're a technology spin-off from ETH Zurich.

If you have skills below, let's work together!

Prerequisites:

1. Ph.D. or Master's degree in a related field
2. Experience with perception and/or motion planning on real-world robots
3. Proven experience developing software using C/C++
4. Experience working in Linux operating system environment
5. Knowledge of algorithms and data structures relevant to robotics
6. Basic English communication skills

Desired skills:
(not required but would be nice)

1. Python programming skills
2. Solid understanding of mechanics and dynamics

For more details contact jobs@rapyuta-robotics.com
 
        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
RIC-Americas Annual Meeting - 2015

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March 10, 2015  5:56 PM
    
            

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ricamericas.png

We
 are announcing the detailed agenda for the ROS-Industrial Consortium 
Americas annual meeting, which will take place in conjunction with 
Automate 2015. Note that there is also a pre-meeting dinner on March 26 that is included with your registration.



Time: 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM CST (Chicago time) on Friday, March 27



Place: Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago Room on 5th floor. Only two miles from the McCormick Place convention center in Chicago, IL.



Agenda:



    

  • 0830 Registration/check-in and light breakfast
    • 

  • 0900 Welcome and Consortium updates
    • 

  • 0945 ROS-I Roadmap Presentation
    • 

  • 1000 Break
    • 

  • 1015 Invited ROS-I Presentations 

    • Cessna/CNRC - Robotic Routing
      • 

    • Caterpillar - Agile Automation
      • 

    • Wolf Robotics - Technology Transfer to Practical Applications
      • 

    • UNC - Real-Time Motion Planning & Proximity Computations for Industrial Robots
      • 

    • GA Tech - Canonical Robot Command Language
      • 

    • Siemens - ROS Simulation for Industrial Applications with Tecnomatix
    • 

  • 1215 Lunch/Keynote: Fraunhofer IPA - Factory in a Day Project - Reducing System Integration Time to One Day
    • 

  • 1300 Focused Technical Project Presentations - 2015 

    • Robotic Blending Milestone 3: Expedite and Technology Transfer
      • 

    • Strategic Project: CAD to ROS Conversion
      • 

    • Best of Amazon Picking Challenge
      • 

    • On-Line Adaptive Cartesian Path Planner for Collaborative Robotics
    • 

  • 1400 Breakout discussions about FTPs
    • 

  • 1500 Lightning talks by Research Members
    • 

  • 1600 Conclusion
    • 




Registration: Registration Link



How many people can we send?



    

  • Full Members - 3
    • 

  • Associate Members - 2
    • 

  • Research Members - 1
    • 

  • Additional Members - $300 EA
    • 




Not a member? Join Now



We look forward to seeing you there!
 
        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
New toolchain for building catkin packages: catkin_tools

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March  9, 2015  1:52 PM
    
            

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From Jon Bohren via ros-users@

Some ROS devs got frustrated with Catkin. You won't believe what happened next!
This is what they built: http://catkin-tools.readthedocs.org/

Quick summary:
- `catkin_tools` is an improved toolchain for building catkin workspaces
- this toolchain is ready for beta testing, and we want your feedback
- the CLI command is simply called `catkin`
- the build sub-command is `catkin build`
- it builds packages with isolated build directories (no CMake crosstalk)
- it builds packages in parallel
- it builds "pure" CMake packages that don't use Catkin macros
- it lets you build selected packages in a workspace
- it lets you build packages without cd'ing to the workspace root
- it needs to be tested more before being recommended over `catkin_make`
- the documentation for all the additional features can be found here: http://catkin-tools.readthedocs.org/

Install it now (from the ROS debian repos):
sudo apt-get install python-catkin-tools

Or install it now (from PIP):
sudo pip install -U catkin_tools

Take a look at the cheat sheet:

Give it a try and report issues or feature requests here:

For some background and the relationship to the current top-level `catkin_make` command:

Many thanks to Contributors:
William Woodall
Jonathan Bohren
Nikolaus Demmel
Dave Coleman
Felix Ruess
Dirk Thomas
Kartik Mohta
Thibault Kruse
Ian McMahon
Kei Okada

Those
 of us who've put time into this project over the last year hope that 
`catkin build` makes your lives less stressful and helps you build 
robotic systems faster. 

        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
Autonomous Driving R&D Intern at Bosch in Palo Alto

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March  9, 2015 10:42 AM
    
            

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            From Jeff Johnson via ros-users@

The Autonomous Driving Team (http://robotics.boschresearch.com)
 of the Bosch Research and Technology Center in Palo Alto is looking for
 highly motivated interns with a strong desire for solving complex and 
interesting problems. We offer intern projects for a variety of topics, 
including ROS software development, perception, sensor fusion, planning,
 physics/traffic simulation and computer vision.



Interns will work closely with staff researchers on a directed research 
project related to the candidate's background. Examples contain (but are
 not limited to):



- Perception: Topics in sensor calibration, on-line monitoring to detect
 out-of-calibration sensors, turn signal detection, classification, etc.

- Deep learning: Topics in computer vision (traffic light, vehicle turn 
signal, road surface detection) and prediction (vehicle trajectories, 
driver intent, situation analysis)

- Localization: Improving vehicle localization in GPS-limited 
environments, e.g. using visual localization and tight GPS/IMU coupling.

- Prediction: Improving behavioral prediction of traffic participants, 
e.g. through learning traffic behavior patterns from data, or by 
incorporating turn signal information.

- Planning: Motion & behavior planning, automated behavior testing 
via traffic scenario generation and modeling in simulation.



Details and online application:

http://www.bosch.us/content/language1/html/12750.htm



Availability: all year

        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
New release of ROS build farm

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March  6, 2015  6:06 PM
    
            

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A new version of the new Docker-based ROS build farm has been released.
It now covers all jobs necessary for ROS Indigo and Jade (which we plan to deploy to jenkins.ros.org in the near future).

If you are already using the new ROS build farm you should consider updating to the latest Python package "ros_buildfarm" 0.2.0.
The
 documentation has also been updated since the previous release to cover
 all new configuration options as well as the build files for doc jobs.
All relevant information is referenced from the ROS wiki page http://wiki.ros.org/buildfarm.

We will continue to run our test installation covering ROS Indigo as well as Jade until it gets deployed on jenkins.ros.org.
You can find Jenkins here: http://54.183.26.131:8080
and the apt repository as well as the generated documentation here: http://54.183.65.232/

If you are trying to deploy a custom ROS buildfarm and have any issues doing so please let us know.
You can do this either via the build farm mailing list (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ros-sig-buildfarm) or in the issues tracker of the relevant GitHub repository.
Even
 if you have didn't run into any problems when setting up a custom build
 farm please consider sending us a brief message so that we know that it
 works for others.
 
        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
New 3rd party packages available

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March  5, 2015  1:59 PM
    
            

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            From Daniel Stonier via ros-users@

This is just a heads up with regards to a few new third party packages on the ros apt-get server that others might find useful:


Google's
 optimization solver library. It is not a catkin 3rd party, but packaged
 by Vincent Rabaud and available via the usual ros apt-get server. We 
were doing everything by source for months before finding out Vincent 
had packaged it for us - thanks Vincent!


A really awesome c++ implementation of lie groups by Hauke Strasdat built on top of Eigen. Thanks Hauke!


Backports
 some useful features for qt's imshow from 3.0 to the ubuntu system 
release of 2.4.x. It lets you zoom, save, and run from parallel threads 
(great for use on top of ecto).


A new comms release from the author of zeromq (official web page).
 We often use this for lightweight communications on low level arm 
boards that can't support ros. Cross compile with catkin from source for
 the arm boards, or use the deb for the pc side.

Enjoy your robot'icking!

        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
OSRF is in Google Summer of Code, version 2015!

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March  4, 2015  2:40 PM
    
            

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Accepted students will participate in real-world software development, contributing to robotics projects like Gazebo, ROS, and Ignition Transport, and engaging with the global robotics community, all while getting paid. As a bonus, this year we also offer ROS-Industrial

Check out our GSoC site and don't forget to visit our ideas page, which lists projects that we're interested in. Feel free to ask questions and propose suggestions at gsoc@osrfoundation.org. The student application period starts March 16th. Get ready for a robotics coding summer!.

 
        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
Rosjava/Android Indigo Release

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March  4, 2015  1:58 PM
    
            

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            From Daniel Stonier via ros-users@

A quick heads up for the official rosjava/android release on 
indigo. This has been the result of some on and off work over the last 
couple of weeks - a big thank you to input from a few lads who were busy
 on the github rosjava issue trackers. Also to Damon for the android 
improvements since hydro.

Starting points:


Shiny new things (details in the Migration Guide):
  • Gradle version -> 2.2
  • More (and easier) methods of generating message artifacts.
  • Build rosjava debs on the build farm without special workarounds
  • Android Studio 1.x support
  • Android interactions/pairing now stable with tutorials.
  • Lots of other minor fixes and updates.
Enjoy!

        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
REP 144 - ROS Package Naming under review

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March  3, 2015  1:56 PM
    
            

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            From Vincent Rabaut via ros-users@

Hi all,

after not knowing how to properly name packages for NAO, I wrote a REP for how to name ROS packages:
https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/rep/blob/master/rep-0144.rst
The original discussion with awesome reviewers happened at:
https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/rep/pull/94

The
 draft is now in the process of becoming official (or rejected) so if 
you have any feedback, please continue the discussion here:
https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/rep/pull/96

        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
Call for testing new version of RViz

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March  2, 2015  3:46 PM
    
            

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            From William Woodall via ros-users@

We have new versions of rviz in both Indigo (1.11.7 up from 1.11.4) and Hydro (1.10.19 up from 1.10.18) in the shadow fixed repository, and I am looking for some help testing these new versions out.

You can see a summary of the changes here:


The
 shadow fixed repository, for those who do not know, is the staging 
repository which we use for testing before making new versions public. 
You can think of it as a place for release candidates. See http://wiki.ros.org/ShadowRepository for information about the process and how you can try out packages from it.

If
 you use rviz on Indigo or Hydro and have some spare cycles I would 
appreciate you testing out the new versions either from shadow fixed or 
by building it from source. Any issues you might find, please file them 
on the rviz issue tracker.

I'll keep the "release candidates" in the shadow fixed repository for about week unless we run into problems.

Thanks!

P.S. the link to the Indigo changes above may take some time to catch up, if you don't see 1.11.7, look here instead: https://github.com/ros-visualization/rviz/blob/11fcdadbbcc4c9d38a0bd4d580be6f0b49cbbc47/CHANGELOG.rst

        




    

    





                            
                            



    

        
Bosch Autonomous Driving R&D Engineer: Motion Planning

        

            
    
                By Tully Foote on March  2, 2015  1:29 PM
    
            

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            From Jan Becker of Bosch R&D in Palo Alto via ros-users@

Bosch R&D in Palo Alto, California, USA is looking for excellent 
candidates with expertise in motion planning for a full-time position in
 the autonomous driving team.



Degree Level: M.S. with at least 3 years of prior experience or Ph.D.



Major(s): Robotics, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.



Your Duties and Tasks:

Perform research, develop, implement and evaluate algorithms for 
real-time motion planning in environments with dynamic obstacles for 
safe and comfortable motion of human users.



Skills / Job Requirements:

- Ph.D. or M.S. in computer science, engineering, robotics, or a related field

- Excellent knowledge and proven expertise in motion planning approaches in robotics.

- Working knowledge of optimization methods and optimal control methods.

- Excellent C++ programming expertise required, Python programming is a plus

- Proven system integration and software architecture skills

- Knowledge of Linux, and development on Linux systems preferred

- The ability to develop, understand and implement complex algorithms efficiently and correctly

- Experience with modern software engineering tools

- Experience working independently in a large software setting

- Experience working on robot and/or automotive electronics hardware a 
plus, as is experience with simulation environments and ROS

- Excellent communication skills and demonstrate a proven ability to 
multitask and deliver on challenging software development tasks



Details and online application:

http://www.bosch.us/content/language1/html/13324.htm

        




    

    







                            

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