[I'm also forwarding this thread to Gerhard Kraetzschmar of RoSta as we
should probably move this discussion to a central place. Does RoSta have a
mailing list?]

Herman,
We largely agree on the scope and the details. I also agree that we need a
*sense* of some progress in this area to overcome the skepticism of a few
failed attempts.

I reckon we should organize on one mailing list and set up a few working
groups to start technical discussions.

alex

Quoting Herman Bruyninckx <Herman [dot] Bruyninckx [..] ...>:

> This is a thread started on the Orca mailinglist (triggered by some
> events
> on ICRA07 about "microsoft robotics studio", the open source answer to
> it,
> and the European project Rosta . I took the
> liberty of crossposting my reply also on the orocos developers
> mailinglist,
> because the topic is really worth it....
>
> herman
>
> On Fri, 27 Apr 2007, amak4609 [..] ... wrote:
> >
> > in general, is it worth trying to promote some sort of
> > cooperation/standardization in robotics? i think so, even if it hasn't
> > been super successful so far.
>
> I agree with you: the various open source projects should do _something_
> now
> to start real integration...
>
> > regarding this particular RoSta 'project'. first of all, as the
> organizers
> > have stressed several times it's not a project but a 'coord. action'.
> the
> > difference is in the levels of funding and expected results. there's
> just
> > enough money to discuss things, come up with requirements, etc. They
> also
> > have funding for 1 full-time person to evaluate different options
> against
> > their requirements. at the end of 2 years one possible outcome would
> be to
> > actually propose one or several real projects.
> [...]
> > If you want my opinion... it makes no sense to say "let's standardize
> > robotics". you have to identify things which makes sense to
> standardize,
> > in what domain, for what purpose.
>
> I agree!
>
> > here a few ideas:
> >
> > 1. static data formats, file formats, etc.
> > these are definitely possible to standardize across a bunch of
> application
> > if not the whole field. e.g. data structures, log file formats,
> coordinate
> > systems. this is easy to do and would be very valuable, especially if
> it
> > leads to good 'standard' data sets. (someone brought up config file
> format
> > as another candidate but I'm not sure how it would work.)
>
> These are certainly the best and easiest things to start with. I will
> profit from the CARE opportunity and meet with Klas Nilsson from Lund
> University (one of the CARE partners) to sit together for two days (May
> 21-22) and try to kickstart this effort...
>
> Any inputs welcome! Maybe we should ask CARE to add a wiki or
> mailinglist
> for this purpose...? I asked them at the ICRA, and they are willing to
> do
> so. Anyway, having a concrete 'representation' from the open source
> projects would help a lot to get things to move fast: both for ourselves
> as
> for CARE. As you said yourself: most of the standardization effort is
> about
> "just do it" and not so much about science anymore....
>
> With respect to log formats: I just found out about TimeDoctor
>
>
>

> which is an Eclipse plugin for visualising logs from the Linux kernel.
> but
> I think this infrastructure could be used for logging of robotics events
> too...
>
> I think the open source projects should select two or three of these
> "infrastructure" projects to standardize on, in order to ease
> integration.
> (And we have to get our "Not Invented In This Project" egos out of the
> way...)
> My concrete suggestions are:
> - Eclipse as the IDE.
> - Blender as 3D visualisation, simulation and programming tool.
> (See my more concrete suggestions about Blender here:
> .)
>
>
> > 2. libraries
> > good implementations of key algorithms are sorely needed. this came up
> > several times on the Player list and recently Alex B. and Ben were
> talking
> > about it as well. if someone (an open-source group or a company) wrote
> a
> > good localization library then it would be quickly integrated into
> > orca/player/msrs/etc.
> I fully agree again. That's why the Orocos project took the approach to
> separate functionalities (kinematics, Bayesian filters, ...) into
> separate
> libraries, instead of hard-wiring them in the realtime framework.
>
> > 3. communication
> > my feeling is that technically it is be possible to implement a large
> > portion of the robotic field with one middleware (needeless to say, i
> > believe that middleware is essential here). :) however, this is a
> > 'religious' issue which cannot and should not be decided by a
> committee.
> > let the 'market' sort it out.
> I agree with the fact that there is no "one size fits all" approach. And
> that's where the open source world has a potential competitive advantage
> with respect to MS. _But_, then we have to make sure that interested
> users
> can "shop" at one place, have information about which use cases are best
> for which kind of application, and that they can download packaged
> solutions that integrate with the "IDE" and "3D" infrastructure tools
> that
> we should begin to use...
>
> > 4. architecture
> > cannot be standardized in general (and for this reason Orca does not
> > specify any). however, for a particular application, e.g. tight
> > closed-loop control, it is possible and probably useful.
> I agree.
>
> > 6. binary compatibility of components
> > this is the holy grail of standardization but requires agreeing on
> > everything above. it's achieved within individual component-based
> > frameworks but i don't think anybody wants or can pick a single winner
> at
> > this point.
> There will be no single winner: various use cases require various
> solutions. What we have to do is (i) to identify the various use cases,
> and
> (ii) to provide easy packaging for each of them.
>
> Herman Bruyninckx
>
> --
> K.U.Leuven, Mechanical Eng., Mechatronics & Robotics Research Group
> Tel: +32 16 322480
>
> Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm
>
>
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On Thu, 3 May 2007, amak4609 [..] ... wrote:

> [I'm also forwarding this thread to Gerhard Kraetzschmar of RoSta as we
> should probably move this discussion to a central place. Does RoSta have a
> mailing list?]
Not yet, I think...

> We largely agree on the scope and the details. I also agree that we need a
> *sense* of some progress in this area to overcome the skepticism of a few
> failed attempts.
>
> I reckon we should organize on one mailing list and set up a few working
> groups to start technical discussions.
>
I agree.

Herman

Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm