Open Robotics

Powering the world's robots

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Simulation discussion at M3 meeting

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Brian attended the progress meeting for the DARPA Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program in Philadelphia earlier this week. Besides having the chance to see the impressive and varied work being done as part of M3 (from ostrich-like runners to inflatable walkers), Brian was there to present OSRF’s plans for the robot simulation that will be built to support the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) and get feedback from the M3 participants, many of whom have a lot of experience using and building robot simulators. The simulation session was very productive, with lots of great ideas and pointers provided by the audience. We’ll be staying in touch with many of the M3 folks as we get to work on the DRC simulator.

Slides from Brian’s talk: [PDF]

Founding Contributor: Willow Garage

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We’re pleased to announce that Willow Garage is a Founding Contributor to OSRF! This status acknowledges the critical financial, organizational, and moral support that Willow provided during OSRF’s incubation over the past few months, as well as a generous financial contribution that has allowed us to bootstrap company operations.

We especially want to thank Steve Cousins, CEO of Willow Garage, who has been instrumental in the creation of OSRF. We’re working closely with Willow on software projects, notably Gazebo and ROS, and we look forward to Willow’s continued support of OSRF’s mission.

A new website, and a new office

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After a couple of months of setup, OSRF is up and running! You’re already checking out our new website. You’ll see more content appearing here as we start spinning up new projects.

We just moved into our new office:

It’s a 3,000 sq ft building in Mountain View, walking distance to Castro Street and the train station. We’re looking forward to getting to know the cafes, restaurants, and other amenities that Mountain View has to offer.
And the commuters among us are already enjoying the express train service.

We’re still equipping the office, so there isn’t much yet in the way of furniture. But, importantly, there are fish.

Once we have things set up, there’ll be an office-warming party to plan.

OSRF Launch

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[Cross-posted from Willow Garage]

The mission of the Open Source Robotics Foundation is “to support the development, distribution, and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development.” You will find this mission on the new OSRF Web site, but not much else. In the coming weeks, we will be expanding on our goals, our short- and long-term plans, and the individuals and organizations that will be leading OSRF. For now, contact OSRF for more information or to get involved.

The first initiative of OSRF will be participation in the DARPA Robotics Challenge, announced recently. The DARPA Robotics Challenge, or DRC, will launch in October 2012 and offers a $2 million prize “to whomever can help push the state-of-the-art in robotics beyond today’s capabilities in support of the DoD’s disaster recovery mission.” The full announcement of the initiative specifically mentions the Fukushima nuclear accident as a recent example of a potential robotic application although other recent disasters such Hurricane Katrina and the oil spill at Deepwater Horizon also quickly come to mind.

DARPA today sponsored a Proposer’s Day Workshop where more information about the Robotics Challenge is available via Webcast. During the Webcast, Nate Koenig from Willow Garage gave a brief talk on the current and future state of the open source Gazebo robot simulator, which will be extended by OSRF to support the DARPA Robot Challenge.

The DARPA Robotics Challenge supports the National Robotics Initiative announced by the Obama Administration in June 2011.