This episode is dedicated to all those people that are designing the behaviour of their robots for the Robocup competition.
Today we are going to talk about bipeds using ROS with liquid cooling systems.
But before going into that, let me remind you about our ROS online academy. Yes, at the Construct we have created an online academy named The Robot Ignite Academy which contains a ROS learning path for beginners. The path is composed by:
Now let me introduce you Luis Sentis. Luis is an associated professor in aerospace engineering at University of Austin in Texas and a holds a PhD from Stanford about humanoid robots. He is also founder of Apptronik Systems and member of the board. Apptronik a company developing actuators and controllers for robots with high power and high efficiency. They are about to launch their latest product, the DRACO bipedal platform, which relies on their actuators and controllers.
This episode is dedicated to all those people that are designing the behaviour of their robots for the Robocup competition.
Today we are going to about evolving state machines from the original SMACH
But before going into that, let me remind you about our ROS online academy. Yes, at the Construct we have created an online academy named The Robot Ignite Academy which contains a ROS learning path for beginners. We start by teaching you Linux and Python for robotics, and we continue teaching you all the basic ROS concepts required to become a master of ROS. We conclude with a course that teaches you how to build your own robot and how to ROSify it, add ROS control to it so you can finally become a ROS Developer.
Now let’s talk with Brett Aldrich. Brett is the CEO of REEL ROBOTix, a company that is in the process of putting to the market some hardware for robots (secret yet!). However, within that company, Brett found the necessity to give a different approach to State Machines inside ROS. For that he developed SMACC. Today, Brett is going to explain us what is all about this SMACC and how we can use it for our robotics projects.
In case you are thinking about buying some robots for your class on robotics, here you are going to find a list of some of the most interesting ones, based on my own experience as teacher of robotics at University of LaSalle Barcelona.
The list contains a series of robots that you as a teacher can consider buying for making your students practice with real robots using ROS.
Disclaimer
We received no money, commission or any type of compensation for showing the robots of the list. It just expresses my personal opinion.
Criteria
They must be robots that run with ROS, either off-the-shelf or because the manufacturer provides the drivers. I’m not taking into account robots that the manufacturer does not provide ROS drivers, even if somebody else has created the drivers. The reason is that usually, drivers created by third parties are not properly maintained, so you may end with a robot whose driver only runs in ROS C-Turtle.
I have selected the robots that you can fully buy. I’m not including experiments that you may try based on a website with some list of materials. Basically, the criteria is that after bying, you will receive a box with the robot or pieces to build it.
You must be able to use the robot for your own purpose. So I’m not including ROS robots that are part of a robotics solution (like warehouse handling, stock control, …).
If the robot does not comply with those criteria, we are discarding the robot from the list.
It may happen that your robot does meet the criteria and is not included in the list. Please let me know my errors in the comments section below, and I’ll be happy to update the post.
Do It Yourself Robots
Those are robots that you buy online and receive all the pieces in a box, with the instructions ready to build. They are very small size (they fit on your desk) and are based on a basic sensor.
List of robots:
Linorobots, by Juan Jimeno: a series of build-yourself differential drive wheeled ROS robots with laser sensor created by Juan Jimeno. You can build several types of robots with them and learn about the basic concepts of robotics like robot kinematics, obstacle avoidance or robot navigation.
Duckiebot, by the Duckietown Project: very simple ROS robots based on differential drive and camera to learn about visually based navigation. Those robots are part of the Duckietown project, a larger project that builds a complete city where those robots must learn to navigate around, taking into account traffic signals, and other robots around.
JetBot CUDA robot: this is a small wheeled robot based on a Nvidia Jetson Nano card. This makes the robot an interesting option if you want to use deep learning with your robot since the card is equipped with CUDA cores.
Small Wheeled Robots
Those are robots of small-medium size that have wheels to move around. They are best suited for learning or teaching.
List of robots:
Turtlebot 2: this the most famous robot in the ROS world. Almost everyone learning ROS has used this robot for testing. It is a midsize robot with a differential drive, bumpers and a point cloud device. This robot allows practicing robot navigation. It is a good tool for teaching robotics navigation and kinematics.
Turtlebot 3, by Robotis: the next generation of Turtlebot, in a smaller size and in two different configurations and includes a 360º laser. This robot is small enough to fit on your desktop. They include multiple wholes in their structure so you can add your own structures on top. This is one of the few robots that works with ROS2.
ROSbot by Husarion: the ROSbot is a very compact robot including several sensors: lidar, point cloud device and infrared sensors. Very good for learning and teaching. This robot also works with ROS2.
Robot Manipulators
Those are robots arms that may or may not include a gripper. Robot manipulators are usually attached to a fixed platform, but can also be combined with a mobile platform to create a mobile manipulator. By the way, I refuse to call them cobots
List of robots:
Open Manipulator, by Robotis: it is an open source design of a robotic arm of small size that you can have on your desktop. The joints use dynamixel servos. Given the small size and open source spirit, it is very well indicated for learning and teaching. It has 4 DOF and a small gripper.
CRANE-X7, by RT-NET: another 3D printed robotic arm, but of a bigger size than the Open Manipulator. It makes part of a larger set of educational material. It comes with a gripper.
Niryo One, by Niryo: small robotics arm that also fits in your desk. It is very compact and solid and it is specially made for education. It comes with a gripper.
Gen3, by Kinova: the latest robotic arm by Kinova with 6 DOF and a purpose for education and research. It doesn’t contain a gripper. In case you need it, you would have to integrate from another company. What is interesting is that it comes with an integrated Intel Realsense for vision and depth.
Panda, by Franka Emika: a 7 DOF with included gripper ready for teaching or research. Actually, it is ready for industry applications too.
Sawyer Black, by Rethink Robotics: after the close of Rethink Robotics, the company was bought by the Hahn Group and developed this new version of Sawyer. This updated version of Baxter has 7 DOF, a gripper and cameras in its grip.
Legged Humanoids
Robotis-OP3, by Robotis: small one that fits on your desktop
Other educational materials mentioned on the podcast
This episode is dedicated to all those people that are building business on top of ROS. I mean, people that take existing ROS packages, existing ROS robots, existing ROS applications and integrates all that into a product. A product that sells.
Today we are going to chat with one of those professionals that have started a very interesting business on top of ROS. And I can tell you that the idea is quite original!
But before going into that, let me remind you about our ROS online academy. Yes, at the Construct we have created an online academy named the Robot Ignite Academy which contains a ROS learning path for beginners. We start by teaching you Linux for robotics and Python for robotics, and we continue teaching you all the basic ROS concepts required to become a master of ROS. We conclude with a course that teaches you how to build your own robot and how to ROSify it, add ROS control to it so you can finally become a ROS Developer.
Now let’s talk with Faysal ElChamaa. Faysal is the main director of RoboAds, a company devoted to the creation of robots that can display ads on screens moving around a space. Faysal explains how he decided to take this idea from a different direction from current advertising robots, how their business model works, how is his company using ROS in the robots and what are the plans of the future for the robot with the COVID pandemia.
This episode is dedicated to all those people that were impressed by that TV series named the Knight Rider. You know, about that autonomous car named KITT which had adventure with his owner Michael Knight and solving crimes everywhere. I was influenced by that car and how it was able to move around autonomously and I’m sure that many other out there working on autonomous cars were also influenced.
Today we are going to talk about the Autoware foundation and how it is pushing forward the creation of self-driving cars powered by ROS.
But before going into that, let me remind you about our ROS online academy. Yes, at the Construct we have created an online academy named the Robot Ignite Academy which contains a ROS learning path for beginners. We start by teaching you Linux and Python for robotics, and we continue teaching you all the basic ROS concepts required to become a master of ROS. We conclude with a course that teaches you how to build your own robot and how to ROSify it, add ROS control to it so you can finally become a ROS Developer.
Now let me introduce you Joshua Whitley. Joshua is software architect at the Autoware Foundation since February this year. He has 5 years of experience developing software for autonomous robots. He is also one of the teachers of the course about self-driving cars with ROS and autoware that is being released these days.
Today we are going to chat with the person behind the hub for robots. Have you heard of Git Hub? No, I mean a hub for robots! What is that? You are going to learn in a minute.
But before going into that, let me remind you about our ROS online academy. Yes, at the Construct we have created an online academy named The Robot Ignite Academy, which contains a ROS learning path for beginners. We start by teaching you Linux and Python for robotics, and we continue teaching you all the basic ROS concepts required to become a master of ROS. We conclude with a course that teaches you how to build your own robot and how to ROSify it, adding ROS control to it so you can finally become a ROS Developer.
Now it is my pleasure to introduce to you Brandon DeHart. Brandon got his PhD in gait metrics for robotics bipeds last year. At present, he is the engineering manager of the RoboHub at the University of Waterloo and sessional instructor at the University of Waterloo. What does that mean? What is RoboHub? What is a sessional instructor at that facility? I don’t know, but Brandon is going to explain it to us.
