Sharing Software with ROS

Sharing facilitated by robot operating system (ROS) web site is discussed, examples of code being developed and refined at different site are provided, and the personal robot program, PR2 version 2, which is making the common hardware available to accelerate robotics innovation is considered. ROS development is governed by a package system and code is added to ROS by simply creating a new package. The Care-O-bot 3 is a mobile manipulator from Fraunhofer IPA in Germany, which is designed to have a human facing the side with a tray and a Schunk lightweight arm. The Brown Robotics group also released drivers for the Aldebaran Nao platform, including basic movement, head control, speech, and camera access. The PR2 Beta program runs software for basic functions such as calibration, navigation, and manipulation, and for higher-level applications including mapping and plugging into standard wall outlets.