Robot SDKs
|
Robot SDKs |
 |
Learn about new software development kits for robots and robotic-enhanced products, including AIBO, Lego Mindstorms, Evolution Robotics and various open source projects.
Last month Sony begun the celebration to commemorate the third anniversary of the first AIBO Entertainment Robot, originally launched in May 1999. They introduced a new addition to the LM series, the "bulldog slash pug-impersonator", AIBO ERS-31L. It is marketed as "smarter, faster, and better looking", although some (including me) will argue that it is actually uglier, strongly resembling other members of the LM series (the ERS-311/312). The ERS-31L now supports photo-taking capabilities, a 75-word vocabulary, interactive and expressive sensors, and more than 200 new behaviors. Best of all, its price has also been reduced to $599 in North America. But there's more good news...
In addition to the new hardware, Sony has also begun publishing details of AIBO's system architecture in an attempt to get developers to work on independent software packages. Although the company has sold more than 100.000 units, interest from consumers has begun to wane recently, and these are attempts to generate more interest in the future. AIBO's operating system was closed and proprietary, but some successful attempts to hack the system architecture and extend its functionality were severely penalized in the past.
A vice president of Sony's Entertainment Robot America once even sent a letter to Aibopet.com - a site owned by an AIBO fan, providing free programs and other add-ons - citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the possible consequences. Fortunately, the times have changed, and they are now actively promoting the OPEN-R, a standard interface for the entertainment robot systems.
OPEN-R is the free cross-development environment based on gcc (C++) where
you can make software that works on AIBO (ERS-210, ERS-220, ERS-210A, and ERS-220A). ERS-310 is left out of the loop because a wireless LAN connection is not available for that model, which makes debugging process very difficult.
I recently downloaded the SDK, and it really provides a load of interesting and useful information. The source code of sample programs are also provided, including head motion with ball tracking and similar examples. You can learn from and customize these programs. However, some really advanced features are still almost impossible to implement:
The following features found in commercial AIBO applications are typically controlled by the proprietary Sony OPEN-R middleware layer and/or application layer (called the "level-1" interface):
- AIBO's walking style (gait)
- Voice recognition
- Object recognition
- Play MIDI sounds
These interfaces are not provided in the freely-available OPEN-R SDK, because the purpose of the OPEN-R SDK is research, not commercial applications. To implement the functionality listed above, you must implement these features yourself "from scratch"... Commercial AIBOware is made by different tools, not by the OPEN-R SDK.
Of course, high-level programming using the R-CODE is still available. R-CODE is a high-level, interpreted script language created for AIBO Master Studio. It is intended for hobbyists and end-users. An R-CODE script is interpreted and executed by the appropriate interpreter object, which is actually an OPEN-R application object. However, it is not suitable for computing-intensive processing.
Last week was full of good news for robotics enthusiasts, as Evolution Robotics unveiled what it calls a "personal robot system" - essentially a robotic framework centered around the standard laptop computer. ER1 retails for $499 in a do-it-yourself kit or $599 in a pre-built format. It includes a robot base, a Web cam, hardware control electronics, two stepper motors, two 4-inch diameter drive wheels and a 360 degree caster wheel. Looks like a standard low cost robotics platform, but the advanced operating systems enables it to learn on the fly. This platform should help enthusiasts move robotics beyond the assembly line and research lab, and into the home and workplace. "In the same way that the Netscape browser made the Internet accessible to the masses, we think this new software will make robots accessible to regular people," said Bill Gross, one of the founders.
Besides ER1, Evolution Robotics offers a broad spectrum of products, including the Evolution Robotics Software Platform, a professional development system for writing software for robots and robotic-enhanced products. It takes care of all the low-level systems and complexities inherent in robotics and delivers highly functional, ready-to-go capabilities, which manufacturers and developers can use to build custom applications for new robotic products. This software provides a range of options to let you program at the level you want, from coding in C++ to dragging and dropping behaviors in a Behavior Composer GUI. An XML-based Behavior Interpreter is included to let you script and immediately run programs, or you can write programs and develop new behaviors directly in C++. The software also features a tele-presence utility for controlling your robot over the network.
Besides the commercial SDKs, there are numerous related open source projects that provide the basis for the development of robotics applications. Over the last few years, open-source and free software initiatives have given computer users a remarkable collection of tools and capabilities. The Rossum Project aims to extend the same kind of collaboration to the development of robotic software. The first major software release for the Project, a 2-D robot simulator known as Rossum's Playhouse (RP1), is now available. James Wilson is now putting the final touches on his C/C++ API for the RP1 mobile robot simulator.
RobotFlow is a mobile robotics toolkit based on the Overflow project. Overflow is a data-flow oriented architecture, similar to Simulink (Matlab) or Labview that is free (LGPL) and versatile. The visual programming interface provided in the Overflow project will help people to better visualize and understand what is really happening in the robot's control loops, sensors, actuators, by using graphical probes and debugging in real-time.
MotoRobots Software Libraries project aims to develop a collection of embedded software libraries in C/C++ for robotics applications, along with a comprehensive User Guide and code examples to document the libraries. The initial focus of this library is the 68332-powered Mini Robo Mind (MRM) robot controller board. However, the scope of this project includes all 68K/ColdFire and PowerPC micros.
Lego Mindstorms RCX microcontroller is a programmable brick that comes with Lego's Robotics Invention System. Several development projects recently focused on providing enhanced Java-based operating systems and APIs for that platform, including leJOS, RCXJVM, RCX Java API and TinyVM. lugnet.robotics.rcx.java is a focused discussion group for JVM/Java/Jini firmware or software for the Mindstroms RIS with in-depth technical discussions, collaboration, planning, architecture, analysis, etc.