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ROS Industrial: Robotic Blending Milestone 5 Wraps Up on the Foundry Shop Floor

On March 7, 2024, the Robotic Blending Milestone 5 team convened in West Jefferson, Ohio, at Fisher Cast Steel to see a demonstration of a Scan-N-Plan framework, optimized for a foundry system, that has an operational goal of grinding riser and gate surface anomalies to finished surface tolerances. The idea is to provide a system that is operator-driven and requires no interaction with the traditional robotic teach pendant. Through the use of intuitive user interfaces, the system should be able to work from simple operator cues to process parts to their desired finish state.

Workflow including Isu developed capability

Launched in March 2023, the program was built around a team that included sponsor Steel Founders’ Society of America (SFSA), Iowa State University (ISU), Yaskawa Motoman, PushCorp and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The program would leverage legacy ROS-Industrial Scan-N-Plan developments over the course of prior Focused Technical Projects (FTP) developed via the ROS-Industrial Consortium, as well as university developed capabilities at ISU, funded previously by SFSA. The combined capability may be seen in the below graphic.

The program held workshops and integration events at multiple team member sites. The first was a process development workshop hosted by PushCorp in their process development lab in Garland, Texas. Fisher Cast Steel provided samples for each team to utilize for testing and PushCorp provided guidance on how best to set up their spindle and active compliance device.

From there a starting system, with minimal Scan-N-Plan framework was instantiated in the lab at SwRI. This was largely based on the Scan-N-Plan Workshop which has been the basis for some of the recent trainings relative to industrial reconstruction and motion planning pipeline tuning.

From this point after a virtual demonstration in the SwRI lab, work got going in the Iowa State lab. ISU had installed a robust Kawasaki industrial robot with a similar but different PushCorp active compliance/spindle combination. One of the goals of this program was to create the same software implementations at each site on their specific configurations. This would enable ISU to develop add-on capabilities and test them in their lab and then update the main application to enable incorporation into the end user foundry site for evaluation and use. The software framework for the program and the modules to be updated and contributed by ISU are pictured below.

ISU hosted an integration event and the team worked together to assist ISU in updating their prior work from ROS Kinetic to ROS 2 Humble. Also, there were numerous working sessions to get a reliable ROS 2 driver and on robot interface for the PushCorp hardware working on their system. By the time the demonstration came around at ISU they had a working Scan-N-Plan system and had gotten tool path planning, and new concepts for approaches for grinding stone media working. This would end up being the prime path moving forward relative to the target castings for the program.

Though we did not get all the ISU capability incorporated, the team continued to work on the ISU segmentation approach and the program at ISU continues to work and test a more recent version. The participation of the students highlighted the opportunity for collaboration of grad school programs with more seasoned programmers to establish the foundational tools needed to enable students to come up to speed on complex ROS-based systems and how to sustain the talent pipeline.

Finally, the Yaskawa Motoman team completed their build and integration activities. The team came together quickly at Fisher Cast Steel to get the system ready for ROS-based capability deployment. Safety issues were resolved and cable management and PushCorp equipment integration was further optimized. Once the system was ready, the SwRI team deployed to the industrial PC via developed Docker images the full application, executed camera calibration and started initial testing.

By the mid-point of the second week the system was regularly grinding castings. It became evident that process optimization and development would be required. Due to the human-drawn boundary segmentation not being ready, the user selects a region of interest to do the grinding on the UI by simply circling it on the reconstruction in the view. The industrial reconstruction provides nice contrast and human markings show up clearly to assist in the process.

The full team convened for the demonstration on March 7, 2024. A number of features were processed, and the system demonstrated, even with region selection from the GUI to efficiently process only within the region of interest. There have been several areas for improvement identified, but the team felt a lot was learned and the system can deliver value. Fisher Cast Steel has since done a number of process enhancements and continues to improve system performance while also training operators to run the system independently. A number of enhancements to the open source Scan-N-Plan_workshop have been pushed and a blog post details those improvements in detail. A highlight video of the program is slated for later release.

Thanks to the full team for their work on realizing this capability at Fisher Cast Steel. This program highlights the value of bringing university partners together with robotic system deployers and solution providers along with sound software practices to realize compelling capability and provide pathways for funded university research to get more efficiently into operational environments. Thanks to the program sponsor Steel Founders’ Society of America for being the champion for this program and thanks to Fisher Cast Steel for their continued enthusiasm and feedback to continue to improve the delivered system which will further benefit others down the road.

Disclaimer: The publication of this material does not constitute approval by the government of the findings or conclusion herein. Wide distribution or announcement of this material shall not be made without specific approval by the sponsoring government activity.

Acknowledgement: This research is sponsored by the DLA-Troop Support, Philadelphia, PA and the Defense Logistics Agency Information Operations, J68, Research & Development, Ft. Belvoir, VA.

https://rosindustrial.org/news/2024/5/17/robotic-blending-milestone-5-wraps-up-on-the-foundry-shop-floor

ROS Discourse General: New Packages for Iron Irwini 2024-05-17

We’re happy to announce 13 new packages and 194 updates are now available in ROS 2 Iron Irwini . This sync was tagged as iron/2024-05-17 .

Package Updates for iron

Added Packages [13]:

ros-iron-apriltag-detector-mit: 2.2.0-1
ros-iron-apriltag-detector-mit-dbgsym: 2.2.0-1
ros-iron-apriltag-detector-umich: 2.2.0-1
ros-iron-apriltag-detector-umich-dbgsym: 2.2.0-1
ros-iron-apriltag-draw: 2.2.0-1
ros-iron-apriltag-draw-dbgsym: 2.2.0-1
ros-iron-apriltag-mit: 1.2.2-1
ros-iron-apriltag-mit-dbgsym: 1.2.2-1
ros-iron-leo-gz-bringup: 1.1.0-1
ros-iron-leo-gz-plugins: 1.1.0-1
ros-iron-leo-gz-plugins-dbgsym: 1.1.0-1
ros-iron-leo-gz-worlds: 1.1.0-1
ros-iron-leo-simulator: 1.1.0-1

Updated Packages [194]:

ros-iron-ackermann-steering-controller: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-ackermann-steering-controller-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-admittance-controller: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-admittance-controller-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-apriltag-detector: 1.2.1-1 → 2.2.0-1
ros-iron-aruco-opencv: 5.1.0-1 → 5.2.0-1
ros-iron-aruco-opencv-dbgsym: 5.1.0-1 → 5.2.0-1
ros-iron-aruco-opencv-msgs: 5.1.0-1 → 5.2.0-1
ros-iron-aruco-opencv-msgs-dbgsym: 5.1.0-1 → 5.2.0-1
ros-iron-behaviortree-cpp: 4.5.1-2 → 4.6.0-1
ros-iron-behaviortree-cpp-dbgsym: 4.5.1-2 → 4.6.0-1
ros-iron-bicycle-steering-controller: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-bicycle-steering-controller-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-controller-interface: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-controller-interface-dbgsym: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-controller-manager: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-controller-manager-dbgsym: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-controller-manager-msgs: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-controller-manager-msgs-dbgsym: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-diff-drive-controller: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-diff-drive-controller-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-dynamixel-hardware: 0.3.1-4 → 0.4.0-1
ros-iron-dynamixel-hardware-dbgsym: 0.3.1-4 → 0.4.0-1
ros-iron-effort-controllers: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-effort-controllers-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-fields2cover: 1.2.1-3 → 2.0.0-10
ros-iron-fields2cover-dbgsym: 1.2.1-3 → 2.0.0-10
ros-iron-flexbe-behavior-engine: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flexbe-core: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flexbe-input: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flexbe-mirror: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flexbe-msgs: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flexbe-msgs-dbgsym: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flexbe-onboard: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flexbe-states: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flexbe-testing: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flexbe-widget: 2.3.3-1 → 3.0.0-1
ros-iron-flir-camera-description: 2.2.15-1 → 2.2.16-1
ros-iron-flir-camera-msgs: 2.2.15-1 → 2.2.16-1
ros-iron-flir-camera-msgs-dbgsym: 2.2.15-1 → 2.2.16-1
ros-iron-force-torque-sensor-broadcaster: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-force-torque-sensor-broadcaster-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-forward-command-controller: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-forward-command-controller-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-fuse: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-constraints: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-constraints-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-core: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-core-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-doc: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-graphs: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-graphs-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-loss: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-loss-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-models: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-models-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-msgs: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-msgs-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-optimizers: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-optimizers-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-publishers: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-publishers-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-tutorials: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-tutorials-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-variables: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-variables-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-viz: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-fuse-viz-dbgsym: 1.0.1-3 → 1.0.1-4
ros-iron-gps-msgs: 2.0.3-1 → 2.0.4-1
ros-iron-gps-msgs-dbgsym: 2.0.3-1 → 2.0.4-1
ros-iron-gps-tools: 2.0.3-1 → 2.0.4-1
ros-iron-gps-tools-dbgsym: 2.0.3-1 → 2.0.4-1
ros-iron-gps-umd: 2.0.3-1 → 2.0.4-1
ros-iron-gpsd-client: 2.0.3-1 → 2.0.4-1
ros-iron-gpsd-client-dbgsym: 2.0.3-1 → 2.0.4-1
ros-iron-gripper-controllers: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-gripper-controllers-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-hardware-interface: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-hardware-interface-dbgsym: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-hardware-interface-testing: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-hardware-interface-testing-dbgsym: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-imu-complementary-filter: 2.1.3-3 → 2.1.4-1
ros-iron-imu-complementary-filter-dbgsym: 2.1.3-3 → 2.1.4-1
ros-iron-imu-filter-madgwick: 2.1.3-3 → 2.1.4-1
ros-iron-imu-filter-madgwick-dbgsym: 2.1.3-3 → 2.1.4-1
ros-iron-imu-sensor-broadcaster: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-imu-sensor-broadcaster-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-imu-tools: 2.1.3-3 → 2.1.4-1
ros-iron-joint-limits: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-joint-state-broadcaster: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-joint-state-broadcaster-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-joint-trajectory-controller: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-joint-trajectory-controller-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-kitti-metrics-eval: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-kitti-metrics-eval-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-leo: 2.0.1-1 → 2.0.3-1
ros-iron-leo-description: 2.0.1-1 → 2.0.3-1
ros-iron-leo-msgs: 2.0.1-1 → 2.0.3-1
ros-iron-leo-msgs-dbgsym: 2.0.1-1 → 2.0.3-1
ros-iron-leo-teleop: 2.0.1-1 → 2.0.3-1
ros-iron-librealsense2: 2.54.1-2 → 2.55.1-1
ros-iron-librealsense2-dbgsym: 2.54.1-2 → 2.55.1-1
ros-iron-mola: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-bridge-ros2: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-bridge-ros2-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-common: 0.3.0-1 → 0.3.1-1
ros-iron-mola-demos: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-imu-preintegration: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-imu-preintegration-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-euroc-dataset: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-euroc-dataset-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-kitti-dataset: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-kitti-dataset-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-kitti360-dataset: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-kitti360-dataset-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-mulran-dataset: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-mulran-dataset-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-paris-luco-dataset: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-paris-luco-dataset-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-rawlog: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-rawlog-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-rosbag2: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-input-rosbag2-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-kernel: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-kernel-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-launcher: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-launcher-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-metric-maps: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-metric-maps-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-navstate-fuse: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-navstate-fuse-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-pose-list: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-pose-list-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-relocalization: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-relocalization-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-test-datasets: 0.3.1-1 → 0.3.2-1
ros-iron-mola-traj-tools: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-traj-tools-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-viz: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-viz-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-yaml: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mola-yaml-dbgsym: 1.0.2-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-iron-mp2p-icp: 1.3.2-1 → 1.4.0-1
ros-iron-mp2p-icp-dbgsym: 1.3.2-1 → 1.4.0-1
ros-iron-mrpt-path-planning: 0.1.1-1 → 0.1.2-1
ros-iron-mrpt-path-planning-dbgsym: 0.1.1-1 → 0.1.2-1
ros-iron-mrpt2: 2.12.1-1 → 2.12.2-1
ros-iron-mrpt2-dbgsym: 2.12.1-1 → 2.12.2-1
ros-iron-mvsim: 0.9.2-1 → 0.9.4-1
ros-iron-mvsim-dbgsym: 0.9.2-1 → 0.9.4-1
ros-iron-nao-button-sim: 0.1.1-5 → 0.2.0-1
ros-iron-nao-command-msgs: 0.0.4-4 → 0.1.0-1
ros-iron-nao-command-msgs-dbgsym: 0.0.4-4 → 0.1.0-1
ros-iron-nao-sensor-msgs: 0.0.4-4 → 0.1.0-1
ros-iron-nao-sensor-msgs-dbgsym: 0.0.4-4 → 0.1.0-1
ros-iron-position-controllers: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-position-controllers-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-range-sensor-broadcaster: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-range-sensor-broadcaster-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-rclpy-message-converter: 2.0.1-3 → 2.0.2-1
ros-iron-rclpy-message-converter-msgs: 2.0.1-3 → 2.0.2-1
ros-iron-rclpy-message-converter-msgs-dbgsym: 2.0.1-3 → 2.0.2-1
ros-iron-ros2-control: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-ros2-control-test-assets: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-ros2-controllers: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-ros2-controllers-test-nodes: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-ros2controlcli: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-rqt-controller-manager: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-rqt-joint-trajectory-controller: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-rviz-imu-plugin: 2.1.3-3 → 2.1.4-1
ros-iron-rviz-imu-plugin-dbgsym: 2.1.3-3 → 2.1.4-1
ros-iron-spinnaker-camera-driver: 2.2.15-1 → 2.2.16-1
ros-iron-spinnaker-camera-driver-dbgsym: 2.2.15-1 → 2.2.16-1
ros-iron-spinnaker-synchronized-camera-driver: 2.2.15-1 → 2.2.16-1
ros-iron-spinnaker-synchronized-camera-driver-dbgsym: 2.2.15-1 → 2.2.16-1
ros-iron-steering-controllers-library: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-steering-controllers-library-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-tinyspline-vendor: 0.6.0-4 → 0.6.1-1
ros-iron-tinyspline-vendor-dbgsym: 0.6.0-4 → 0.6.1-1
ros-iron-transmission-interface: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-transmission-interface-dbgsym: 3.24.0-1 → 3.25.0-1
ros-iron-tricycle-controller: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-tricycle-controller-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-tricycle-steering-controller: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-tricycle-steering-controller-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-unitree-ros: 1.1.0-1 → 1.1.1-1
ros-iron-unitree-ros-dbgsym: 1.1.0-1 → 1.1.1-1
ros-iron-ur-description: 2.1.4-1 → 2.3.0-1
ros-iron-usb-cam: 0.8.0-1 → 0.8.1-1
ros-iron-usb-cam-dbgsym: 0.8.0-1 → 0.8.1-1
ros-iron-velocity-controllers: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-velocity-controllers-dbgsym: 3.22.0-1 → 3.24.0-1
ros-iron-zbar-ros: 0.4.0-3 → 0.5.1-1
ros-iron-zbar-ros-dbgsym: 0.4.0-3 → 0.5.1-1

Removed Packages [1]:

ros-iron-apriltag-detector-dbgsym

Thanks to all ROS maintainers who make packages available to the ROS community. The above list of packages was made possible by the work of the following maintainers:

Bence Magyar
Bernd Pfrommer
Daisuke Nishimatsu
Davide Faconti
Denis Štogl
Enrique Fernandez
Evan Flynn
Felix Exner
Fictionlab
Gonzalo Mier
Jose-Luis Blanco-Claraco
LibRealSense ROS Team
Luis Camero
Martin Günther
Pedro Soares
Philipp Schillinger
Southwest Research Institute
Stephen Williams
Tom Moore
Yutaka Kondo
ijnek

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ROS Discourse General: ROS News for the Week of May 13th, 2024

ROS News of the Week of May 13th, 2024

We wrapped up the Jazzy Test and Tutorial Party this week and everyone is diligently working towards the Jazzy release next week. We’re asking all ROS package maintainers who plan to release their package with Jazzy or soon thereafter to prepare a “Jazzy Jive” for release day.

ICRA 2024 was this week in Yokohama, Japan. It feels like the on-line world of robotics has slowed to a crawl while people meet in real life. IEEE Spectrum has a great round up of videos from ICRA.

Last night was our ROS Meetup in Pittsburgh at Gecko Robotics. I was really impressed with their office, testing equipment, and overall business model. Apparently I am not the only one.

Pick up some Jazzy swag at spring.ros.org!

Events

News

ROS

Got a minute?

Why not help out your fellow ROS developers by answering a questions on robotics.stackexchange.com.

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ROS Discourse General: Mobile Aloha: AgileX achieves two-arm collaborative tasks based on Mobile Aloha

Showcase: AgileX achieves two-arm collaborative tasks based on Mobile Aloha

Mobile Aloha is a whole-body remote operation data collection system developed by Zipeng Fu, Tony Z. Zhao, and Chelsea Finn from Stanford University. link.

Based on Mobile Aloha, AgileX developed Cobot Magic, which can achieve the complete code of Mobile Aloha, with higher configurations and lower costs, and is equipped with larger-load robotic arms and high-computing power industrial computers. For more details about Cobot Magic please check the AgileX website .

In previous projects, AgileX successfully implemented the entire process of data collection, data replay, model inference and reproduction for the single-arm gripping task based on Mobile Aloha. Now AgileX collects more and more complex data and achieves the entire reasoning process of the dual-arm long sequence multi-target gripping task.

Task description

The task can be described as:
First, stretch out the right arm, pick up the black block from the table, and then place the black block on the horizontally placed box in the center of the table. Then place the right robotic arm back, and at the same time stretch out the left robotic arm, pick up the red block from the table, and place it on the central box on the desktop. Finally, put the left arm back in its original place.
inference

Compared with the previous tasks, the difficulty of this task has been upgraded: from the original short sequence to a long sequence task. Upgrading from a single robotic arm mission to a dual robotic arm mission. The target of clamping also changes from single to multiple.

Data Collection

In this task, the Orbbec DaBai camera is used to collect at a frequency of 30HZ, and contains 50 sets of acquisition data, and each set of data is collected at a fixed step size. Camera data contains color images, depth images, and point cloud information. The data collection platform is equipped with 2 master arms and 2 follower/puppet arms.

Data Replay

The data replay script loads and reads the collected joint data and reproduces it as it is.

Inference

Aloha is implemented based on the ACT (Action Chunking with Transformers) algorithm model. See the figure below for the specific model

Perform model training and inference. Pick up the black block correctly with your right arm and place it on the middle box of the table. The left arm also successfully picked up and placed the red block.

inference(拿动)

The black and red blocks were manually placed back from the central box on the table. The robotic arm still recognized that the object on the box had been removed and successfully completed the task again: the right and left arms respectively picked up the black and red blocks and placed them back on the central box on the table.

Generation

Add interference to the original data set task actions to test the generalization ability of the model.
After the left arm finished a whole task and went back to the initial place, the red black on the central box was then manually removed and placed back on the table. The right arm detected that the black block didn’t change its position, so no picking action was performed. The left arm found that the red bolck was removed, so picked it onto the central box.
inference2(拿动)

Summary

In this case, AgileX successfully achieved the entire process of data collection, model training and inference, and generalization ability verification for a two-arm multi-target grasping task based on Mobile Aloha. AgileX will continue to collect more scenes and more complex tasks, so please stay tuned.

About AgileX

Established in 2016, AgileX Robotics is a leading manufacturer of mobile robot platforms and a provider of unmanned system solutions. The company specializes in independently developed multi-mode wheeled and tracked wire-controlled chassis technology and has obtained multiple international certifications. AgileX Robotics offers users self-developed innovative application solutions such as autonomous driving, mobile grasping, and navigation positioning, helping users in various industries achieve automation. Additionally, AgileX Robotics has introduced research and education software and hardware products related to machine learning, embodied intelligence, and visual algorithms. The company works closely with research and educational institutions to promote robotics technology teaching and innovation.

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ROS Discourse General: :saxophone: Jazzy Package Maintainers: It is time to write your Jazzy Jives

Time to Write Your Jazzy Jives

Attention Package Maintainers:

As I am sure you are aware, the Jazzy Jalisco release is a week away. I was just reviewing the release notes for Jazzy and there are a lot of great new features to get excited about. Everyone should be proud of all we’ve accomplished in the past year!

After a few discussions with the ROS Boss @marcogg and the team we decided we wanted to repeat the “Humble Brags”, and “Iron Flexes” the community has created in previous years. Instead of just posting the release notes for the core ROS libraries, we also want to have the release post highlight all of the packages that make ROS such a wonderful community. This year we’re going to call these “Jazzy Jives” just to be cheeky and keep with the naming convention.

If you are a package maintainer and you plan to have your Iron package ready for release day, or soon thereafter, we would love it if you could put together a brief set of release notes about your package. Our end goal is for the Jazzy release post to showcase not just the core ROS features, but also the recent updates for the entire ROS community. We want to show the world why it is time to switch to ROS 2, and why Jazzy is our best ROS distro yet.

A good set of release notes should include:

A brief description of your package and what it does.
The new features, improvements, and bug-fixes in your package.
A list of the people who made your Iron release possibleime to write your Jazzy Jives
Action shots of your package doing its thing, or any other recent accomplishments you are proud of.
Once you have your post ready, just wait for the main Jazzy release announcement here on Discourse (hopefully it should happen before 2024-05-24T00:00:00Z UTC).

Our hope is that the Jazzy release Discourse thread will read like an outline of all the new features and packages that are currently available in Jazzy. Last year this process helped us pick up a fair bit of media coverage for the project. Discourse is very markdown friendly so you should be able to re-use these release notes in your package’s readme file, documentation, and homepage.

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ROS Discourse General: Robotics Developers Day 2024 (*formerly ROS Developers Day) Call for Participation

Dear ROS community,

We are thrilled to invite you to the 7th Robotics Developers Day (*formerly ROS Developers Day), an online conference designed to guide and elevate your robotics career. Mark your calendar for July 5, 2024, and join us from anywhere in the world:

Conference Details:

Date: July 5, 2024
Time: 2 PM – 2 AM CEST | 7 AM – 7 PM CDT | 9 PM – 9 AM Tokyo
Location: Online

Learn more and register: https://www.theconstruct.ai/robotics-developers-day/

Purpose of the Event:
Robotics Developers Day serves as a platform to deepen your understanding of robotics and its career opportunities. Through engaging discussions and practical sessions, you will gain valuable insights into crucial aspects of the field.

What to Expect:

Expert Interviews: Professionals will share their experiences and insights on various robotics career paths, including development, research, education, consultancy, and entrepreneurship.
Skills Learning: Participate in five hands-on sessions where you’ll program robots in real-time with expert guidance.

Highlights:

Expert Interviews:
- Experiences as a Humanoid Robotics Developer, with Luca Marchionni and Sai Kishor Kothakota from PAL Robotics.
- Generating Revenue from Robotics Courses.
- Insights on Building a Robotics Start-up.
- Teaching & Researching Robotics at University, with Professor Jack Silberman, UC San Diego.
- Building a Robotics Consultancy Business, with Denis Stogl, CEO @ Stogl Robotics.
Skill Learning Sessions:
- Programming ROS2 with RUST by Júlia Marsal Perendreu.
- ROS2 Gazebo Custom Plugins by Shantanu Parab.
- ROS2 with a Tiny Quadcopter by Kimberly McGuire.
- State Estimation in Kalman Filters in ROS2 by Thisas Ranhiru Samaraweera.
- Robot Arm Motion Planning with Pyroboplan by Sebastian Castro.
Workshops:
- A Review of ROS2 Jazzy by Alberto Ezquerro.
- Building Your Robotics Portfolio for Better Employment by Ricardo Tellez.
Events:
- Real Robot Game Contests
- 2024 ROS Awards Ceremony

Who Should Attend:
This conference caters to individuals at all career stages, from beginners to seasoned professionals, who are interested in exploring or advancing their careers in robotics.

Main Takeaways:

Gain clarity on your career options within the robotics domain.
Acquire new skills and knowledge relevant to your professional growth.
Connect with peers and industry experts in a collaborative environment.

More details about the speakers and sessions will be provided soon.

Learn more and register: https://www.theconstruct.ai/robotics-developers-day/

We hope to see you there!
The Construct team

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ROS Discourse General: Pose Prediction for Mobile Ground Robots

Hello everyone,

I want to announce the open source release of sdf_contact_estimation, a ROS1 noetic library for the fast and accurate pose prediction of mobile ground robots in rough terrain (also referred to as robot settling or robot-terrain interaction). A demo is available.

With a runtime of about 0.5 ms per predicted pose, this approach is much faster than a traditional physics simulation and suitable for online planning applications. Voxblox is used as the environment model. Possible use-cases are:

Automatic flipper control
Path planning
Tip-over prevention

This software has been used by Team Hector in the RoboCup Rescue League for whole-body planning with a tracked robot with actuated flippers. That software will be part of a future release.

License: MIT

I am looking forward to your feedback.

Best wishes,
Martin Oehler

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ROS Discourse General: BT-Studio 0.3 available (with video)

Hi folks,

the third release of BT-Studio (0.3) is out. BT-Studio is the JdeRobot web tool for creating BehaviorTree based robotics applications.

It supports ROS2-Humble.
It supports both real robots and simulated robots.
You can create robotics applications from your web browser combining Python source code with a visual editor of BehaviorTrees.
Two sample demos with a TurtleBot2 robot in Gazebo have been developed: Follow Person and Bump and Go

BT Studio 0.3 Visual Follow Person

Currently this tool is being improved along a Google Summer of Code 2024 project in JdeRobot org.

This is the next step from a previous discussion some months ago @ct2034.

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ROS Discourse General: Announcing robot_folders -- your new workspace management tool

Hi everybody,

Do you enjoy workspace management as part of your ROS developer life? Or are you tired of sourcing your workspace in every new shell and navigating to your workspace root in order to build your workspace every time? If you feel more like the second, we might have something for you:

Introducing robot_folders, your new tool to make your life as a ROS developer even more enjoyable.

robot_folders helps you with

Easy sourcing workspaces in a new shell with fzirob change_environment
Easy building of workspaces (from everywhere, in every sourced shell) with fzirob make
Easy navigation to your workspace folders with fzirob cd
Using underlay workspaces in a breeze with fzirob manage_underlays
Adding libraries to your workspace that can’t be built by colcon by using a misc_ws
Defining entry points for your applications by using fzirob run
Exchanging workspaces (“environments”) with others containing everything that is needed to get you running.
Builtin zsh support no more thinking about which setup file to source
Rich tab completion for all commands and environments

While being originally designed around the use-case of combining catkin workspaces with a custom cmake-based build system over the years robot_folders has evolved. Support for our custom build system got removed as the build system got deprecated and support for colcon workspaces was added.

We now decided to go open-source in order to share that experience with the community and for opening up the development for new feature ideas in order to make it the best work companion for doing ROS development.

If you’d like to try it yourself, check it out today by installing it via pip / pipx. See the installation instructions for details on installation.

Documentation can be found here.

Any issue reports, suggestions or any other feedback are very welcome on GitHub.

Happy robot folding

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ROS Discourse General: New Packages for Noetic 2024-05-10

We’re happy to announce 2 new packages and 67 updates are now available in ROS Noetic. This sync was tagged as noetic/2024-05-10. The sync was performed on May 10th; this announcement is a bit late.

Thank you to every maintainer and contributor who made these updates available!

Package Updates for ROS Noetic

Added Packages [2]:

ros-noetic-ortools-vendor: 9.9.0-6
ros-noetic-rtshell: 3.0.1-5

Updated Packages [67]:

ros-noetic-cob-actions: 0.7.10-1 → 0.7.11-1
ros-noetic-cob-base-controller-utils: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-base-drive-chain: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-base-velocity-smoother: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-bms-driver: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-canopen-motor: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-cartesian-controller: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-collision-velocity-filter: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-command-gui: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-cob-command-tools: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-cob-common: 0.7.10-1 → 0.7.11-1
ros-noetic-cob-control: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-control-mode-adapter: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-control-msgs: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-dashboard: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-cob-description: 0.7.10-1 → 0.7.11-1
ros-noetic-cob-driver: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-elmo-homing: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-footprint-observer: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-frame-tracker: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-generic-can: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-hardware-emulation: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-helper-tools: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-cob-light: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-mecanum-controller: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-mimic: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-model-identifier: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-monitoring: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-cob-msgs: 0.7.10-1 → 0.7.11-1
ros-noetic-cob-obstacle-distance: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-omni-drive-controller: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-phidget-em-state: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-phidget-power-state: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-phidgets: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-relayboard: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-scan-unifier: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-script-server: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-cob-sick-lms1xx: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-sick-s300: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-sound: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-srvs: 0.7.10-1 → 0.7.11-1
ros-noetic-cob-teleop: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-cob-trajectory-controller: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-tricycle-controller: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-twist-controller: 0.8.23-1 → 0.8.24-2
ros-noetic-cob-undercarriage-ctrl: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-utilities: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-cob-voltage-control: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-fields2cover: 1.2.1-3 → 2.0.0-2
ros-noetic-generic-throttle: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-geometric-shapes: 0.7.5-1 → 0.7.6-1
ros-noetic-laser-scan-densifier: 0.7.16-2 → 0.7.17-2
ros-noetic-lsc-ros-driver: 1.0.3-1 → 1.0.4-1
ros-noetic-mrpt-path-planning: 0.1.1-1 → 0.1.2-1
ros-noetic-mrpt2: 2.12.1-1 → 2.12.2-1
ros-noetic-mvsim: 0.9.2-1 → 0.9.4-1
ros-noetic-raw-description: 0.7.10-1 → 0.7.11-1
ros-noetic-robot-localization: 2.7.5-1 → 2.7.6-1
ros-noetic-rviz: 1.14.20-1 → 1.14.23-1
ros-noetic-scenario-test-tools: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-service-tools: 0.6.34-1 → 0.6.35-2
ros-noetic-urg-stamped: 0.1.0-1 → 0.1.1-1
ros-noetic-warthog-control: 0.1.8-1 → 0.1.9-1
ros-noetic-warthog-description: 0.1.8-1 → 0.1.9-1
ros-noetic-warthog-msgs: 0.1.8-1 → 0.1.9-1
ros-noetic-ypspur: 1.22.0-1 → 1.22.5-1
ros-noetic-ypspur-ros: 0.5.0-1 → 0.6.0-1

Removed Packages [0]:

Thanks to all ROS maintainers who make packages available to the ROS community. The above list of packages was made possible by the work of the following maintainers:

Alexander Bubeck
Atsushi Watanabe
Autonics-lidar
Benjamin Maidel
Felipe Garcia Lopez
Felix Messmer
Florian Weisshardt
Gonzalo Mier
Jannik Abbenseth
Jose-Luis Blanco-Claraco
Joshua Hampp
Kei Okada
Loy van Beek
Matthias Gruhler
Robert Haschke
Tom Moore
Tony Baltovski
Tyler Weaver

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ROS Discourse General: Jazzy support for ROS2 Babel Fish and QML ROS2 Plugin for quickly developed and great-looking intuitive Robot UIs

Good friday everyone,

for those of you already testing the new Jazzy release, I have just release updates for ROS2 Babel Fish and QML ROS2 Plugin with support for ROS 2 Jazzy
Jazzy is also the first LTS version that includes my fixes in the core packages and ROS2 Babel Fish finally has full support for publishing, subscribing AND calling services or actions

Here’s an example of the interface, we’ve built on top of RViz using these libraries:
ui_example
(We will also soon port the rviz overlay code for RViz 2)

Here’s links to the repositories (if you just want to build an interface, you don’t need to care about ROS2 Babel Fish)

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend

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ROS Discourse General: OSRF policy on GitHub organisation naming

The OSRF is putting forward a proposed policy for the naming of GitHub organisations that contain ROS and ROS-based software. This new policy was created taking into account the historical way GitHub organisations were named as part of the ROS project and the changing needs of the community, while also balancing the continued growth of the community, the need for a sustainable model of organisation management and package findability, the desire to clearly identify what is managed by the OSRF, and the need for the OSRF to steward the ROS, Gazebo, and other relevant brands on behalf of the community.

Historically, when a GitHub organisation was created with “ros-” in the name, the ROS maintainers (first at Willow Garage, then at the OSRF) requested administrator/owner control be given to someone associated with the ROS maintainers. This was done because having “ros” in the organisation name was interpreted as special by the community and so someone core to ROS needed to be involved to ensure correct use. This is the origin of organisations such as “ros-drivers” and “ros-planning”. This will now change.

No enforcement of GitHub organisation naming

First, and most importantly, the OSRF will no longer try to exercise any control over GitHub organisations beginning with “ros-” and “gazebo-”, other than those that it already manages. Trying to police the naming of GitHub organisations would be a futile and time-consuming game of Whac-A-Mole - with a lot less of the expected fun of playing the actual game of Whac-A-Mole.

An extension of the above is that, as with similar software-related terms such as Linux, we will not stop someone using “ros”, “gazebo” or “rmf” anywhere in their Github organisation name.

A Github organisation or repository including “ros”, “gazebo” or other similar terms in the name cannot and should not be taken as a sign that the OSRF endorses that project or as a sign of quality.

Please note that creating a Github organisation or repository that contains words like “osrf” or “open robotics” will be taken much more seriously.

Caveats

There is an important caveat to this policy: We will not object to a GitHub organisation being named, for example, “ros-autonomy”, but if trademark infringement, trademark misuse, or misrepresentation is occurring, we will need to take action to protect and preserve the community brands to ensure that they are not devalued. We have a trademark usage guide available for ROS to help you understand how to use the ROS name correctly, and will prepare similar guides for the OSRF’s other registered and common-law trademarks.

We would also like to take this opportunity to offer some naming advice. If your organisation is called something like “ros-autonomy”, you may wish to reconsider your choice of organisation name to maximise the discoverability of your packages through a more descriptive name.

Package discoverability

Long-time members of the community often sing laments over the difficulty of finding packages that fill a specific purpose, such as drivers. This is one of the reasons that the ROS Index was created. We admit that the ROS Index is not perfect; improving it is an item on a very long list of things that need to be done. With the successful launch of the OSRA, we hope to soon have the funding to enable us to take on tasks such as this. If you wish to contribute financially to enabling the OSRF to target critical community needs for rapid improvement, consider joining the OSRA.

REP 2005 is another source of well-known packages that are commonly used. As part of the launch of the OSRA, REP 2005 has always been set for a revision. The revision will now also take into account this organisation naming policy, and part of the revision will involve categorising the list to make it clear which are managed by the OSRF, and which are not.

Existing GitHub “ros-” organisations

For the time being, the OSRF will maintain its management of the existing GitHub organisations that it controls. We have no plans to move any repositories out of existing organisations at this time.

The core ROS team at Open Robotics made use of the access they have to repositories contained in “ros-” organisations to push changes in not-actually-core “ros-” repositories when necessary to facilitate a release or accelerate a necessary fix. While the OSRF believes that such access is a benefit to ensuring up-to-date binary releases of as many packages as possible continue to be available, this is not an approach that is sustainable in the long term.

We intend to transition away from this as we gradually re-organise the ROS repositories managed by the OSRF. We have no current plans to move any repositories out of existing organisations, but it is now less likely that new repositories will be created in the existing organisations if they are not being directly managed by the ROS maintainers. Once we have improved the package discovery tools, we will revisit the existing organisations and repositories.

Request for comments

Before we finalise this policy, we would like to hear your thoughts. What do you like, and what (if anything) would you like changed? Are you aware of any negative impacts that may occur? Don’t wait, let us know now by replying to this thread so we can consider how to improve the policy.

Formal policy statement

The policy statement, as will be posted on the websites once finalised, is given below.

The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) manages (has “owner” permissions on) a number of GitHub organisations. An incomplete list of such organisations is given below.

ros
ros2
ros-infrastructure
ros-planning
ros-drivers
ros-manipulation
gazebosim
gazebo-tooling
gazebo-release
gazebo-web
gazebo-forks
open-rmf

Creators of software based on or related to OSRF software may create their own Github organisations and repositories that follow a similar naming pattern, such as starting with “ros-” or “gazebo-”. Much like the Linux Foundation does not own the hundreds of thousands of repositories with ‘linux’ in the name, the OSRF will not be policing the creation of such organisations and repositories, and in general will not try to prevent their creation.

However, if an organisation or repository name follows one of the above patterns, this should not be taken as an indication that it has been endorsed by the OSRF or as a sign of quality. Verify who manages an organisation or repository, rather than depending on the name alone.

In addition, it is an unfortunate reality that the OSRF must be proactive when it finds infringement, misuse, or misrepresentation of its registered and common-law trademarks. If we encounter an organisation or repository that is being used in a way that conflicts with the OSRF’s trademarks, we will contact the owners to resolve the situation. An example of this is naming your product using ROS or a ROS-derivative name or any other trademark owned by Open Robotics and then naming your Github org accordingly.

Due to the need for strong protection of the Open Robotics non-profit, including the brand and the image of the non-profit organisation in general, we will not be permitting anyone to create an organisation or a repository related to robotics with a name containing “osrf” or “open robotics”.

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ROS Discourse General: ROS Meetup in the Arabian Region

Exciting News!

Are you ready to take your ROS skills to the next level? Get ready, because in our upcoming workshop session, we’re diving deep into ROS Services and ROS Actions!

What to Expect:

ROS Services: Learn how to create and consume ROS services to enable seamless communication between different nodes in your robotic system.
ROS Actions: Discover the power of ROS actions for executing long-running tasks, with real-world examples to help solidify your understanding.

Hands-On Experience:
We’re not just stopping at theory! Dive into practical examples in both Python and C++ to grasp these concepts effectively. Whether you’re more comfortable with Python or CPP, we’ve got you covered!

Save the Date: 11 May

Time: 8 pm Cairo / 8 pm KSA / 9 pm Dubai

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to level up your ROS expertise. See you there!

Don’t forget to stay tuned for updates and further learning resources!

YouTube Channel: https://buff.ly/49UBg3i
Meeting Link: https://buff.ly/49bQOA8

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ROS Discourse General: Ros2 pub, dds sub, use zero copy

I want to verify the communication between ROS2 pub and DDS sub (using the zero copy of the iceoryx componentï¼Œdata type is string). How should I write this example

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ROS Discourse General: IEEE RAS SPARX Mentee Program, Exchange, Scholar-at-Risk

Robotics academics from developing countries (e.g. Chile, India, Hungary, Brazil, Egypt, China, South Sudan, to name a few) and threatened scholars who are seeking refuge/resuming their academic careers, have an opportunity for $10k funding towards collaboration with robotics mentors like Seyed Amir Tafrishi, attendance at e.g. IROS & ICRA, etc.

Amir’s one of 16 selected as a mentor in IEEE Robotics and Automation Society SPARX program program and is willing to pair with mentees on bio-inspired underactuated rolling systems, geometric mechanics, unconventional robot design and control +

I realised that the key to finding a successful mentee in these underrepresented groups in robotics is lots of visibility, so I’m reposting here after a chat with him (I’m not affiliated)

If you know someone suitable (postdoc and up), maybe let them know quickly, since they gotta get their submission in by the end of the week!

The second page of the application form shows project details for collaborations including others in:

Autonomous navigation and localization for marine robot
Energy harvesting for Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT)
Disaster Response with Teams of Heterogeneous Robots
Open-Source T-FLEX Ankle Exoskeleton
Assistive and Rehabilitation Robotics
EEG-based Elderly Home Care
Teleoperation of Legged Manipulators
Deep Learning for Humanoid Robots
Soft Robotic Manipulators
Predictive Display for Teleoperation
Language-driven Manipulation
and more!!

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ROS Discourse General: 🎵 ROS 2 Jazzy Jalisco Release Illustration & Swag Sale

ROS 2 Jazzy Jalisco Release Illustration

Hi Everyone,

It is my pleasure to present you with the illustration for ROS 2 Jazzy Jalisco! This release illustration is the work of our new illustrator Ryan Hungerford. Ryan is an illustrator based in the Bay Area and he was recommended to us by Josh Ellingson, the illustrator for all our previous ROS releases. Josh has been incredibly busy with his amazing installation art, so we decided now was a good time to add another illustrator to our extended team. We’re really excited to have Ryan as part of the team and look forward to working with him on future ROS releases.

Jazzy Swag Sale

We’re also happy to announce that the ROS 2 Jazzy Jalisco swag sale is now live. We’re now using T-Spring for all of our ROS swag sales as the platform supports both a wide array of items and allows us to produce merch on demand and ship it almost anywhere on earth We’ve also created a permanent URL for ROS swag at spring.ros.org so it is easy to find. For this release we are offering fifteen different items for sale including:

Mens, womens, and kids shirts (we’re big fans of the tri-blend shirts)
Baby Onsies
Hoodies and long sleeve shirts
Water bottles and coffee mugs
Banners and posters
GIANT Stickers
Shoulder bags
Throw Pillows

All profits from the Jazzy swag sale go directly to the Open Source Robotics Foundation and help support the ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF projects. If you order today you might just receive your swag by release day on May 23rd, 2024. If you would like to earn Jazzy swag by contributing to the project please consider contributing to the Jazzy Test and Tutorial party that is currently taking place. The top twenty test contributors will be sent a code to our T-Spring store.

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ROS Discourse General: New Nav2 Website!

Howdy yal, its Your Friendly Neighborhood Navigator! We have a really awesome announcement this week over at Open Navigation!

This week is our one-year anniversary! Its been quite a ride over the last year, but we’ve had some amazing partners and sponsors that has made Nav2 continue to grow better/faster/stronger and set up for success for the long-term future. We have made some great progress this year already (with more in store, just you wait ) thanks to the amazing community around Nav2 and the ROS mobile robotics ecosystem. Its an honor to be involved in this effort and continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible for us all to share together!

To celebrate, we’d like to introduce you to our brand-spanking-new website:

This was made possible by the generous support of our Sponsors and in particular Barn Owl Precision Agriculture! An amazing project deserves an amazing website and I’m so happy to unveil this to the community to show robots running Nav2 in the real-world highlighted for all to see!

In conjunction with this update, we’re also migrating our documentation away from navigation.ros.org and over to docs.nav2.org this week for all your tutorial-and-documentation-referencing needs. You’ll notice some broken links as we get to updating all the nooks and crannies of Nav2 for the new website, but bookmark this website moving forward!

We’ll be adding a few more webpages like this over the coming weeks to highlight end users. If you have pictures of your robots running Nav2 that you want to share, please send me a message or an email! I’d love to see them and include them in the new user showcase!

Happy webbing,

Steve

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ROS Discourse General: Guidelines for Testing ROS-based Robots in the Real-World

Interested in testing ROS-based robots in the real-world?

We conducted a study to collect exemplars from the ROS community to assist developers and QA teams in ensuring ROS-based robotic systemsâ€™ reliability in real-world scenarios. Thanks to all who took their valuable time to answer our questionnaire (link) earlier this year.

We are thrilled to share the results of our study! It is a set of 20 guidelines with concrete exemplars (e.g., tools, methods, and code snippets) to assist with runtime verification and field-based testing for ROS-based robotic systems.

The guidelines are documented in a dedicated website: https://ros-rvft.github.io/.

For further details, there is a full paper in ArXiV: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.11498

Ultimately, we believe the guidelines should be a live piece of work and grow with this fast-evolving community. We prepared instructions: contribute to the guidelines!.

Let me know what you think!

Best,
Ricardo D. Caldas

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ROS Discourse General: ROS News for the Week of April 29th, 2024

ROS News for the Week of April 29th, 2024

We kicked off the Jazzy Tutorial Party this week. Please grab a ticket and take Jazzy for a spin. We’ll get the logo out just as soon as we can.

I am planning to be in Chicago next week for Automate. I’ve put together a ROS Meetup in Chicago for next Wednesday. We would love to see you there.

BONUS MEETUP! After Automate I am heading to Pittsburgh for PyCon. I’ve put together a ROS Meetup in Pittsburgh at Gecko Robotics on May 16th.

I have been in Montreal all week for a ROS Meetup and Open Hardware Summit. Here are few snap shots from the trip. We’ve had a bunch of great robotics talks at Open Hardware Summit including one on robotics education for native communities (including robots endangered language education) and another on designing wearable robotics with Jorvon Moss. They should be on the livestream if you are interested in watching.

Events

News

ROS

Got a Minute?

Please take some time to answer a question on Robotics Stack Exchange.

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ROS Discourse General: Jazzy Jalisco Testing & Tutorial Kickoff Party / Instructions

Hi Everyone,

As mentioned previously, we’re conducting a testing and tutorial party for the next ROS release, Jazzy Jalisco. If you happened to miss the kickoff of the Jazzy Jalisco Testing and Tutorial party (video) this morning I have put together some written instructions that should let everyone, no matter their time zone, participate.

TL;DR

We need your help to test the next ROS Distro before its release on 5/23/2024. We’re asking the community to pick a particular system setup, that is to say a combination of host operating system, CPU architecture, RMW vendor, and build type (source, debian, binary), and run through a set of ROS tutorials to make sure everything is working smoothly. Depending on the outcome of your tutorials you can either close the ticket or report the errors you found. If you can’t assign the ticket to yourself leave a comment and an admin will take care of it for you. Please do not sign up for more than one ticket at any given time. Everything you need to know about this process to know can be found in this Github repository.

As a thank you for your help we’re planning to provide the top twenty people who contribute to the testing repository with ROS Jazzy swag (the Jazzy swag sale should go live tomorrow, May 2nd). To be eligible to receive swag you must register using this short Google Form so we can match e-mail addresses to Github user names and count the total tickets closed.

On top of that, this year we’re also offering a free Sponsoring Individual membership in the OSRA to the top three people who contribute as part of this event. The membership will last until the end of 2024 and will provide all the benefits received by the paying Sponsoring Individual members. This is a great way to start getting involved in the OSRA and in the governance of the OSRF’s projects.

The testing and tutorial party will close on May 15, 2024 , but we’re asking everyone to get started right away!

Full Instructions

We’re planning to release ROS 2 Jazzy Jalisco on May 23, 2024 and we need the community’s help to make sure that we’ve thoroughly tested the distro on a variety of platforms before we make the final release. What do we mean by testing? Well, lots of things, but in the context of the testing and tutorial party we are talking about the package-level ROS unit tests and anything else you want to test. What do we mean by tutorials? We also want to make sure all our ROS tutorials are in working order before the release.

The difficulty in testing a ROS release is that people have lots of different ways they use ROS, and we can’t possibly test all of those combinations. For the testing and tutorial party we have created what we call, “a setup.” A setup is a combination of:

DDS vendor: FASTDDS, CYCLONEDDS or CONNEXTDDS
BuildType: binary, debian or source
Os: Ubuntu Noble, Windows and RHEL-9
Chipset: Amd64 or Arm64

If you already have a particular system setup that you work with, we suggest that you roll with that, otherwise feel free to create a new system setup just for testing purposes. If you normally use Windows or RHEL (or binary compatible distributions to RHEL like Rocky Linux / Alma Linux) we would really appreciate your help as we don’t have a ton of internal resources to test these distributions.

Here are the steps for participating in the testing and tutorial party:

First go to the Tutorial Party Github repo and read the README.md.
Figure out your setup!
Note your computer’s host operating system (either Ubuntu Nobel, Windows, or RHEL-9)
Note your chipset, either AMD64 or ARM64, if you don’t know it is probably AMD64.
Note your installed DDS Vendor (this varies by host OS).
Figure out how you want to install the ROS Jazzy Jalisco Beta, your options are:

1. [Binaries](https://docs.ros.org/en/jazzy/Installation.html)
2. Debian installation
3. [Source installation](https://docs.ros.org/en/jazzy/Installation/Alternatives/Ubuntu-Development-Setup.html)

Once you’ve got your “setup” all figured out take a look at the open tickets in the tutorial repo (at the bottom of the page). There should be a set of tickets for your “setup”. Click on the links and review the available tickets. If you want to test something other than the available tickets, feel free to open a new ticket and describe exactly what you are testing.
Pick a single ticket for your setup and use the assignees option to assign it to yourself. If you can’t assign yourself, leave a comment and an admin will assign the ticket to you
Take a look at the ticket and do as it asks in the “Links” section. For example, in this ticket, its links section points you to this tutorial. You should use your new ROS Jazzy Jalisco setup to run through that tutorial.
Once you complete the links section things will either go smoothly or you will run into problems. Please indicate the results using the check boxes in the “Checks” section of your Github issue.
If everything goes well, note as such in your ticket’s comment section. We ask that you attach your terminal’s output as a code block or as a gist file. At this point feel free to close the ticket by clicking “close as completed.”
If something went poorly, also note it in your ticket’s comment section. Please include a full stack trace or other debug output if possible.
Please fill out the Google form for your first issue so we have your contact information.

If you run into issues please feel free to post them to our discussion board on Github. The testing and tutorial party wraps up on May 15, 2024 , but we’re asking everyone to get started early as we will need some lead time to address any bugs.

Happy testing and thanks for all your help! If you have any questions please include them in the comments.

New: Extra Testing Tools

Thanks to a lot of hard work from folks like @sloretz, @peci1, and @robwoolley this year we’re piloting a couple of new features to expand our testing repertoire. These new testing resources should make Jazzy one of the easiest ROS distros to test ever, and let ROS users dip their toes into Jazzy with a lot less work.

As discussed a few months ago, Shane and Martin have worked hard to create ROS Open Container Initiative (OCI) Docker Images for all supported ROS distros. These unofficial OCI Docker images already have a beta version of Jazzy Jalisco ready to go.

Try ROS Jazzy out on your machine by running:


docker run --rm=true -ti ghcr.io/sloretz/ros-testing:jazzy-desktop bash

The images are updated once per day at UTC midnight. Keep your copy up to date by running:


docker pull ghcr.io/sloretz/ros-testing:jazzy-desktop

We encourage you to use these containers to participate in the T&T Party, or to test Jazzy with your existing ROS project. The official docker images will be available shortly after the Jazzy release.

If you run into issues with Jazzy while using these images or containers to test your personal codebase please use our Jazzy issue tracker to report them.

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ROS Discourse General: State of Cloud Robotics – Survey

If you’ve worked with robotic fleets in production, please contribute to our working group’s effort of identifying the needs and best-practices by filling out our State of Cloud Robotics Survey. Your input will influence future directions of open-source tools that can help us all! And yes, the results will be shared here and you can also leave your email address at the end of the survey if you want to be notified. Thanks.

This has been posted in another thread as part of a different announcement, but I believe many people may have missed it there and I think it deserves its own topic. Feedback and comments about this survey are welcome!

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ROS Discourse General: Jazzy Pre-release is ready for the Tutorial Party!

Hi everyone!

The jazzy pre-release is complete! . This means that at this point we have:

Jazzy documentation.
Deb ,RPM packages and binaries for windows. To try them out just follow the jazzy installation instructions.
ros2.repos for jazzy.
jazzy distro in rosdistro.
CI and buildfarm configs for jazzy.
Interim tarballs for jazzy:

Reminder that the tutorial party is starting on 2024-05-01T07:00:00Z UTC with the Tutorial & Testing Party Hangout + Q&A you can find all the details in this post.

See you all at the party!

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ROS Discourse General: Cloud Robotics WG Next Meeting & Survey Released

Last meeting we continued to build our questionnaire - I will update this thread with the link to the recording once I’ve uploaded it.

Next meeting will be 2024-05-06T17:00:00Z UTC→2024-05-06T18:00:00Z UTC, where we plan to discuss responses to our State of Cloud Robotics survey, if there are any. We will also discuss other ways to gather data.

The survey created by the group is now available here: https://forms.gle/tMBS9fhxjhqdGykg7

I have created a LinkedIn post asking people to fill it out: Michael Hart on LinkedIn: Cloud Robotics Working Group - State of Cloud Robotics Survey

If you’re able to, please share the LinkedIn post! Also, if you know of other websites that would be a good place to post the survey, please do so and link it in this thread.

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ROS Discourse General: Interoperability Interest Group May 2, 2024: Sneak Peek of Next Generation Open-RMF

Community Page

Meeting Link

Calendar Link

The current implementation of Open-RMF has proven to be a valuable proof of concept for enabling heterogeneous fleets of robots to operate in shared spaces and with shared infrastructure. Now with the benefit of lessons learned from numerous trial deployments, we are looking towards a reimplementation to increase the scope, scale, capabilities, reliability, and ease of use that Open-RMF provides to its users. The next session of the interoperability group will reveal the new software architecture that’s planned to tackle all these needs at the same time.

Beyond improving the design and implementation of Open-RMF, our architectural plans may be of interest to developers that need to deal with interoperability in general. We’ll be explaining how our choices will enable high performance, highly-concurrent (parallel/multithreaded), memory safe, bug-free code that can tie together disparate systems with a high degree of modularity.

The key themes will be to take advantage of a high performance Entity-Component-System framework (specifically Bevy) and a service-driven architecture to create an SDK that has a broad and flexible surface area, in stark contrast to the design choice of having a very narrow and rigid API take by the current Open-RMF. We’ll talk about the trade-offs of these choices and why we’ve decided to make such a sharp pivot.

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ROS Discourse General: Announcing the ROS Medical community group

Are you using ROS in a medical context?

You’re not alone! There was a great turnout at the medical birds of a feather at ROSCon last year- let’s not wait so long to get together again.

The ROS medical community group will be meeting May 15th. We’ll be triaging the discussions, presentations and collaborations that will be most valuable to the community moving forward. Sign up to this mailing list to receive the calendar invite.

In the meantime, let’s get some intros going.

To the extent that you can share,

who are you? (As an individual or organisation)
what are you working on?
what platform do you use?
what are your plans/goals with ROS?
what libraries are you implementing that could be useful to others?
what experience do you have that could be useful to the community?

I’ll go first:

Who are you? (As an individual or organisation)
I’m Deanna Hood, robotics engineer and former ROS 2 core developer. I’ve worked on lots of different robotics applications in the 10y since my MSc, which is partly how I ended up Australian Young Engineer of the Year (go robots!). In the scope of medical, I used to lead robotics for an early stage surgical robot for regenerative wound treatment (aka skin-printing robot), and now am relieved to be in diagnostics

What are you working on?
I’m currently helping Vexev make the first robotic tomographic ultrasound for artery scanning, which is needed for dialysis treatment/ cardiovascular disease prevention

What platform do you use?
I worked with KUKA LBR Med for a few years for the skin-printing robot and now use the custom arm/manipulator developed at Vexev.

What are your plans/goals with ROS?
Ambitious

What libraries are you implementing that could be useful to others?
Interface package for standardised ultrasound messages, eg BMode, Doppler, IQ, RF data. Robotics safety architecture for mitigating risk of SOUP.

What experience do you have that could be useful to the community?
For a while I was the resident Australian expert on the LBR Med! And from my years on the ROS 2 core team I know my way around the ros2 code base and DDS integration better than the average robotics engineer ().

How about you?!

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