July 2016 Archives

We're happy to announce that the program for ROSCon 2016 has been published. You can see the lineup of accepted presentations here: http://roscon.ros.org/2016/#program

By popular demand, the ROSCon lightning talks and birds of a feather discussions will be returning! Lightning talks and BOF topics are scheduled just-in-time at the conference.

Reminders:

• Save up to $150 by registering before August 26! Visit https://events.osrfoundation.org/roscon-2016-registration!

• There is a limited block of discounted hotel rooms available. Please visit: http://conradhotels.hilton.com/en/ch/groups/personalized/S/SELCICI-GROSA-20161003/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=POG to book your stay.

• ROSCon is happening in Seoul immediately prior to IROS, which will be held in nearby Daejeon: http://iros2016.org/.

We can't put on ROSCon without the support of our generous sponsors, who now include Locus Robotics and Rethink Robotics: http://roscon.ros.org/2016/#sponsors

We're still accepting new sponsors. If you'd like to support ROSCon and connect with the ROS community, please contact the organizing committee: roscon-2016-oc@osrfoundation.org.

We'd like to especially thank our Platinum and Gold Sponsors: Fetch Robotics, Clearpath Robotics, Intel, ROBOTIS, ROS-Industrial Consortium / Southwest Research Institute, and Yujin Robot.

Here's another piece of good news, the ROS community keeps spreading in Asia. Particularly in South Korea where ROSCon 2016 will happen. According to Yoonseok Pyo:

The 5th ROS Korea users seminar & meetup event was held on 16-17 July 2016 at Seoul National University, Korea. The ROS Meetup is designed for beginners of ROS. So we have a time that how to use the ROS such as SLAM and navigation using mobile robot, manipulation using manipulator and MoveIt!.

The first day, we learned the concepts of ROS and basic programming using ROS. The second day, we had a time that how to use the SLAM, Navigation and 'MoveIt!' using mobile robot and manipulator. We had an exciting time over the two days with ROS. https://github.com/robotpilot/ros-seminar

The schedule of the event:

[The first day 8 hours]

• 01 Introduction to Robot Operating System (ROS)
• 02 Hello World
• 03 ROS Basic programming
• 04 Various development tools of ROS (Command line tools, RViz, RQT)

[The second day 8 hours]

• 05 Analysis of 8 years
• 06 SLAM and navigation for mobile robot
• 07 robot arm modeling and How to use the MoveIt!
• 08 Three key features of ROS 2.0

For the past year, we have been an effort to expand the ROS in Korea and Japan. We love ROS, and we think that ROS is the future of robotics and will open the market in the service robotics area!

From Paul Hvass @ROS-Industrial

The ROS Qt Creator Plug-in is developed specifically for ROS to increase a developers' efficiency by simplifying tasks and creating a centralized location for ROS tools. Since it is built on top of the Qt Creator platform, users have access to all of its existing features like: syntax highlighting, editors (C++ , Python, etc.), code completion, version control (Git, Subversion, etc.), debuggers (GDB, CDB, LLDB, etc.), and much more

The ROS Qt Creator Plug-in provides the following capabilities:

• Import/Create Catkin Workspaces
• Create Catkin Packages

• Custom Build and Run Configuration

  • catkin_make (Debug, Release, Release with Debug Info, Minimum Size Release)
  • roslaunch
  • rosrun
  • sourcing workspace
    Note: The Qt Creator Plug-in supports multiple configurations to enable quick switching between configurations, and everything is saved

• Integrated Tabbed Terminal

• Templates
  • Industrial Robot Support Package
  • Basic Launch File
  • Basic URDF File
  • Basic Node File
    Note: Users may create custom templates.

Check out two videos. The first is a short overview of the Qt Creator and its default capabilities. The second video is an overview of the ROS Qt Creator Plug-in developed by Levi Armstrong from Southwest Research Institute. It concludes with an invitation for other to begin using the plug-in for ROS development.

In 2015, the East China Normal University organized the first ROS summer school in China, Shanghai, providing a quick and in-depth learning opportunity for both ROS beginners and advanced ROS users. Now in 2016 the event is happening and we're happy to present the ROS Summer School in China 2016 sponsored by East China Normal University in Shanghai.

According to the organizers:

Robot companies in China have realized the importance of ROS and began building their robot products using the meta operating system. However, learning the ROS framework and its associated components involves a quite a few multidisciplinary concepts, which not only requires developers to have software programming skills, but also to be familiar with robot hardware and even understanding the background of specific industrial applications.

Below is the outline of the program.

• Day 1. Academic research talks and tutorials.
• Day 2. Representatives from industry share their experiences on application development using ROS.
• Day 3. Some introductory ROS courses for beginners.
• Day 4. Learning how to integrate ROS with mobile autonomous robots.
• Day 5. Some advanced topics in ROS.
• Day 6. The topic in computer vision.
• Day 7. Lectures in SLAM.

ROS training is something we all should be interested in and it seems to be pretty hot in China recently. The fact that the Robot Operating System gains adepts benefits us all so if you happen to be in Shanghai this July, register for the event and stop by the East China Normal University to learn more about ROS!

From Mohammad Salameh

ROBOT OPERATING SYSTEM (ROS) WORKSHOP

Recently, ROS (Robot Operating System) has been increasing in popularity around the world and rapidly becoming a de facto standard for writing interoperable and reusable robot software. It provides libraries and tools to help software developers and researchers create robot applications. ROS is being used for many of the world's most exciting and capable robots, such as in industry and entertainment. Besides, developers can learn and gain access freely to the comprehensive developer community and support forum.

The ROS workshop at M-CAIT 2016 will primarily talks participants how to use ROS in their robotics research and development works. Both simulation and with real robot namely Turtlebot will be used to gain some hands-on experience on the ROS. The workshop is designed for beginners and professionals providing basic and intermediate concepts of how the ROS works such as autonomous robot navigation for SLAM, visualization and programming. Thus in this case no previous research or ROS experience is required.

AUDIENCE

Academics, research students and engineers at all levels who wish to learn about Robotics Operating System (ROS). Students and researchers involve in computer vision, controlling system and robotics especially in autonomous navigation, will find this workshop helpful.

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

1. Introduction and overview to ROS
2. Using ROS simulation
3. Using ROS on Turtlebot for SLAM
4. Understanding ROS programming framework

WORKSHOP REQUIREMENTS AND MATERIALS

This is a hands-on robotics workshop focusing from the basic to intermediate ROS levels. Participants will get presentation slides, ROS software and its tools.

PRE-REQUISITES

The audience is expected to bring a notebook and 8GB USB flash drive for hands-on experience.

In order to make the most of your time at M-CAIT 2016 ROS workshop, it is necessary to come to the sessions prepared and ready to start. Please download the following software or information:

• ROS for Turtlebot ISO file
• Universal USB Installer
• http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/download

However, everyone should feel welcome to attend regardless of whether or not they have ROS installed for themselves.

For Registration and payment Click Here

From Mark Siliman

Robotic startup Tend.ai, which just came out of stealth mode today successfully built the world's first fully automated 3D printing system controlled by cloud robots.

One robot fully automates ten 3D printers in the video. The prints are boxed and pushed down a conveyor belt. Any 3D printer can be used, and Tend.ai's artificial intelligence "reads" (OCR) the printers' displays as well as pushes the buttons just like a human would.

Tend.ai allows you to train, control and monitor most collaborative robots from any device (e.g. your mobile phone) without any technical expertise. Tend.ai automatically monitors the state of all machines and optimally executes them.

Tend.ai utilizes ROS in the cloud to control, train and monitor suites of robots from any device. Thanks to cloud computing, standard webcams (< $100) can be used for the vision system.

Tend.ai can tend most machines without any modification or networking.

We're happy to announce that registration for ROSCon is now open! Register here: https://events.osrfoundation.org/roscon-2016-registration

We're looking forward to a great event in Seoul. We have updated the website with more information about the venue, including childcare options:

http://roscon.ros.org/2016/#location

Questions or requests can be sent to the organizing committee:

roscon-2016-oc@osrfoundation.org.

In response to multiple requests for extra time to submit ROSCon proposals, we will keep the submission period open over the weekend until midnight California time (UTC-7) on Monday July 11th. Be sure to submit your proposal(s) before the deadline:

http://roscon.ros.org/review/

As a reminder, ROSCon is happening in Seoul immediately prior to IROS, which will be held in nearby Daejeon.

We can't put on ROSCon without the support of our generous sponsors, who now include ROBOTIS:

http://roscon.ros.org/2016/#sponsors

We'd like to especially thank our Platinum and Gold Sponsors: Fetch Robotics, Clearpath, Intel, ROBOTIS, ROS-Industrial Consortium / Southwest Research Institute, and Yujin Robot.

We are interested in knowing which hardware platforms are the favorite ones to run ROS so we'd like to ask a few minutes of your time to fill the following survey. We'll be sharing the results once it's closed. Thanks for your collaboration!

Click here to take the survey.

From OSRF

Michael Ferguson spent a year as a software engineer at Willow Garage, helping rewrite the ROS calibration system, among other projects. In 2013, he co-founded Unbounded Robotics, and is currently the CTO of Fetch Robotics. At Fetch, Michael is one of the primary people responsible for making sure that Fetch's robots reliably fetch things. Mike's ROSCon talk is about how to effectively use ROS as an integral part of your robotics business, including best practices, potential issues to avoid, and how you should handle open source and intellectual property.

Because of how ROS works, much of your software development (commercial or otherwise) is dependent on many external packages. These packages are constantly being changed for the better -- and sometimes for the worse -- at unpredictable intervals that are completely out of your control. Using continuous integration, consisting of systems that can handle automated builds, testing, and deployment, can help you catch new problems as early as possible. Michael also shares that a useful way to avoid new problems is to not immediately switch over to new software as soon as they are available: instead, stick with long-term support releases, such as Ubuntu 14.04 and ROS Indigo.

While the foundation of ROS is built on open source, using ROS doesn't mean that all of the software magic that you create for your robotics company has to be given away for free. ROS supports many different kinds of licenses, some of which your lawyers will be more happy with than others, but there are enough options with enough flexibility that it doesn't have to be an issue. Using Fetch Robotics as an example, Mike discusses what components of ROS his company uses in their commercial products, including ROS Navigation and MoveIt. With these established packages as a base, Fetch was able to quickly put together operational demos, and then iterate on an operating platform by developing custom plugins optimized for their specific use cases.

When considering how to use ROS as part of your company, it's important to look closely at the packages you decide to incorporate, to make sure that they have a friendly license, good documentation, recent updates, built-in tests, and a standardized interface. Keeping track of all of this will make your startup life easier in the long run. As long as you're careful, relying on ROS can make your company more agile, more productive, and ready to make a whole bunch of money off of the future of robotics.

Next up: Ryan Gariepy (Clearpath Robotics)