Alana Lafferty
UAP Report
UAP Advisor: Professor Rodney Brooks and Dr. Una May O’Reilly
May 20, 2005
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The Orocos ProjectSmarter control in robotics & automation!
“Orocos” is the acronym of the Open Robot Control Software project. The project’s aim is to develop a general-purpose, free software, and modular framework for robot and machine control. The Orocos project supports 4 C++ libraries: the Real-Time Toolkit, the Kinematics and Dynamics Library, the Bayesian Filtering Library and the Orocos Component Library.
Orocos is a free software project, hence its code and documentation are released under Free Software licenses. ODE is an open source, high performance library for simulating rigid body dynamics. It is fully featured, stable, mature and platform independent with an easy to use C/C++ API. It has advanced joint types and integrated collision detection with friction. ODE is useful for simulating vehicles, objects in virtual reality environments and virtual creatures. It is currently used in many computer games, 3D authoring tools and simulation tools. This library is free software.
Physics libraries such as ODE provide excellent real-time simulation, embedding them in a 3D application to create a virtual reality is far from trivial. It is often prohibitively difficult to create a simulated reality that incorporates complex dynamic objects that interact with each other and the environment under physics’ constraints. EZPhysics API is licensed under the GNU Lesser Public License (LGPL). The system is composed of two parts:
The Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit (MRPT) is an extensive, cross-platform, and open source C++ library aimed to help robotics researchers to design and implement algorithms (mainly) in the fields of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), computer vision, and motion planning (obstacle avoidance). The priorities are efficiency and reusability of code. The libraries include classes for easily managing 3D(6D) geometry, probability density functions (pdfs) over many predefined variables (points and poses, landmarks, maps), Bayesian inference (Kalman filters, particle filters), image processing, path planning and obstacle avoidance, 3D visualization of all kind of maps (points, occupancy grids, landmarks,…), etc. Gathering, manipulating and inspecting very large robotic datasets (Rawlogs) efficiently is another goal of MRPT, supported by several classes and applications. A proper and up-to-date documentation is another of the major goals of MRPT developers. Currently there are dozens of examples and several single-topic tutorials. A currently on-going project is devoted to write a “MRPT book” tutorial. The MRPT is free software and it is released under the GPL. Open Source Robotic ArmA five degrees of freedom robotic arm. Why this isn’t quite ready for sale: That said it is an amazingly fun toy to play around with, and a good starting point if anyone has ever had a desire to make the perfect robotic arm (it is open source so you’d be free to make and sell your own) For more details about becoming a Robotic Arm Developer visit our blog
The Katana Robotic Arm is typically used for handling, measurement, or testing applications in assembly, production, and laboratory automation, says Neuronics. The robot is billed as an “intelligent” industrial robotic arm with safety features that “allow it to work directly hand-in-hand with human operators without the need for any additional safeguards or fences,” says the company. The Katana is also touted for its ability to run as an an independent stand-alone unit, without requiring an external control host.
The new Linux version of the Katana allows low-level access to the robot’s Linux control board, and comes with system, communication, and motion libraries available as open source packages. This open source access provides application opportunities “that could hitherto only be met by developing highly expensive custom engineered robotics systems,” says the company. The Katana is based on a single-board computer (SBC) equipped with a PowerPC-based Freescale MPC5200 processor that provides 750 MIPS (millions of instructions per second) of performance, says Neuronics. The robot has six Texas Instruments (TI) TMS320 32bit motor controllers, one for each axis. Built around a CAN bus architecture, the robot also offers Ethernet and USB ports. The Katana is said to operate in three modes: control, standalone direct, and a standalone RPC/Web-services mode that supports technologies such as SOAP and Ajax for web-based control. The Katana’s control board Specifications for the Katana Robotic Arm are said to include: * Processor — Freescale MPC5200 Denx Linux and Xenomai The embedded Linux version of Katana runs a 2.4.25 Linux kernel (upgradable to 2.6.22) that is said to be optimized for industrial high availability. The robot has been developed with the Denx Embedded Linux Development Kit (ELDK) software development kit (SDK), an open-source Linux distribution and development tool suite that is especially popular in Europe’s industrial Linux community. Katana software architecture The Linux kernel is coupled with the Xenomai pre-emption and scheduling real-time add-on framework for Linux, which is supported by recent versions of ELDK. Xenomai provides “skins” for emulating API requests for different real-time operating systems (RTOSes). In the Katana implementation, Xenomai provides a development framework that cooperates with the Linux kernel to provide pervasive, hard real-time support to Nucleus-, kernel-, and user-space applications, says Neuronics. Neuronics offers a Katana Native Interface (KNI) C++ library for control application development “at the lowest interface level,” says the company. The KNI interface can be exported as a Python 2.5 binding, enabling Python development of native and external programs. A control interface is also said to be available directly on the robot, with interfaces in C++ and Python. For non-programmers, the company provides a GUI-based application programming interface (API) called Katana4D, which is targeted at industrial applications, and offers a built-in scripting language. Developers can move the robot arm into the desired position by hand, and Katana4D detects the position, generating the appropriate code, says the company. Katana4D is also said to provide AI algorithms for path optimization and adaptation, and can automatically convert applications to Python for deployment on the Katana in standalone mode. This month, Neuronics announced a “Katana UniKit” robot axis development board. The UnkiKit is said to offer 1-3 axes (axis controllers and motors), a CAN adapter, and a plug-and-play live CD with a customized Ubuntu Linux distribution. The distribution is said to offer sources, documentation, cross compilers and toolsuites for learning, developing, and modifying robotics applications. Aimed at research, education, and OEM robotics development, the UniKit can be purchased separately from the Katana. Founded in 2001, Neuronics is a spin-off venture from the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Institute for Informatics of the University Zurich. Availability The pricing for the embedded Linux version of the Katana starts at 19,500 Euros, or about $24,900 US, says Neuronics. No pricing or availability information was provided for the new Ubuntu-based Katana UniKit development board. More information on the Katana, including links to detailed information on APIs, patches, hardware, and more, may be found here. Text taken from: http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Robotic-arm-runs-Linux/
AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) is a worldwide development cooperation of car manufacturers, suppliers and other companies from the electronics, semiconductor and software industry. Since 2003 they have been working on the development and introduction of an open, standardized software architecture for the automotive industry. The primary goal of the AUTOSAR development cooperation is the standardization of basic system functions and functional interfaces, the ability to integrate, exchange and transfer functions within a car network and to substantially improve software updates and upgrades over the vehicle lifetime. Having this goal in mind, AUTOSAR pushes the paradigm shift from an ECU based to a function based system design attempt in automotive software development and enables the management of the growing E/E complexity with respect to technology and economics. The AUTOSAR Software Component implementation is independent from the infrastructure
A fundamental design concept of AUTOSAR is the separation between:
An application in AUTOSAR consists of interconnected “AUTOSAR software Components”.
Each AUTOSAR Software Component encapsulates part of the functionality of the application. AUTOSAR does not prescribe how large the AUTOSAR Software Components are. Depending on the requirements of the application domain an AUTOSAR Software Component might be a small, reusable piece of functionality (such as a filter) or a larger block encapsulating an entire automotive functionality. However, the AUTOSAR Software Component is a so-called “Atomic Software Component”. It cannot be distributed over several AUTOSAR ECUs. Consequently, each instance of an AUTOSAR Software Component that should be present in a vehicle is assigned to one ECU. Fuente: http://www.muycomputer.com/Actualidad/Noticias/Intel-segundo-en-kernel-Linux/_wE9ERk2XxDDDPRKyaWUehycHesan55N_EFxxymBReu3enYCLLbVpmh-x1QcfPAUO
Fuente: http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=93527 19-10-2009 Linux y electrónica de consumo
MuyComputer
¿Dominará Linux la electrónica de consumo mundial? Así lo cree Jim Zemlin, presidente de la fundación Linux, señalando la importante tendencia en el sector tecnológico para el crecimiento y adopción del sistema abierto durante un discurso en el evento Maemo celebrado en Amsterdam. La mayor flexibilidad, libertad y ausencia de costes por pago de licencias, permitirá a Linux convertirse en la mayor plataforma mundial de la electrónica de consumo, estima, apoyada principalmente en el segmento móvil y en sistemas embebidos. De hecho, la plataforma Linux ha aumentado considerablemente su importancia y extensión en la electrónica de consumo proporcionando la base de innumerables productos como set-top-boxes, lectores de libros electrónicos, teléfonos móviles y segmento de integrados/embebidos, resalta Zemlin indicando algo obvio: “la plataforma sólo avanzará con ayuda de los fabricantes”. “Tardará un tiempo hasta que las compañías se den cuenta de los beneficios del código abierto pero les aseguro que eso sucederá”, explica el responsable de la fundación que gobierna Linux poniendo de ejemplo a nuevos actores como Intel -segundo contribuyente mundial al kernel- o Nokia “que están utilizando importantes recursos para mejorar tecnologías de código abierto”. “Lógicamente las empresas se esfuerzan para cumplir sus propios objetivos pero indirectamente ayudan a otros colaboradores”, dice Zemlin que apuesta por mostrarles los beneficios de una participación de alto nivel para atraer más compañías al ecosistema. Zemlin especuló además con el aumento del “hardware subvencionado” hasta “coste cero” con plataforma Linux por las operadoras móviles y proveedores de servicios de Internet en el segmento de smartphones, MIDs y netbooks. Una tendencia que va en aumento aunque ni a coste cero -hay que “atarse” a la operadora y pagar religiosamente tarifas de voz y datos- y que además no impide que integren sistemas propietarios. Aún así, Zemlin se muestra confiado en el crecimiento de Linux en la electrónica de consumo hasta alcanzar a la mayoría de dispositivos. Una previsión que contrasta con la débil implantación en los ordenadores de consumo como señalaban nuestros compañeros de MuyLinux, aunque se trate de segmentos diferentes del mercado. |
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Copyleft © 2009 Software Libre e Ingenieria |
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The image shows an application consisting of three AUTOSAR Software Components which are interconnected by several “connectors”.
