Tag Archives: ROS
“Scout” Begins NASA Challenge Field Testing
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the NASA Sample Return Robot Challenge is that it takes place outdoors in the real world with variable terrain, lighting conditions and background objects. All we will have ahead of time is a satellite … Continue reading
Pi Robot Contemplates $1.5 Million NASA Challenge
For the past couple of months, Pi Robot has been working with the Silicon Valley ROS team to design, build, and program a robot to enter in the 2015 NASA SRRC Challenge in June 2015. This contest is meant to … Continue reading
Behavior Trees: Simple Yet Powerful AI for your Robot
In the book ROS By Example and in previous tutorials, it is shown to be relatively straightforward to program a robot to execute a particular behavior such as face tracking, navigating between locations, or following a person. But a fully autonomous robot will … Continue reading
Arm Navigation using MoveIt! and OpenRAVE
While it is relatively easy to add an arm to a robot, it is much harder to make it do anything useful. When using our own arms and hands, it seems straightforward to reach for an object in space, even when constrained by … Continue reading
Miscellaneous Updates
Contrary to rumors on the street, Pi Robot does not star in the new film “Life of Pi” although I think a cameo appearance would have been a nice touch. However, Pi does make several appearances in the “5th Year Anniversary” video by Willow … Continue reading
Pi Robot Meets Arduino
One of the key components of any robot is the onboard microcontroller or MCU (Micro Controller Unit). The microcontroller typically interfaces directly with the robot’s sensors (e.g. sonar and infrared), some number of servos (e.g. for controlling an arm), and … Continue reading
Remote Presence using Pi Robot
Season’s Greetings from Pi Robot, It’s been awhile since I posted an update so I thought I write up a summary of the past few months. Contrary to rumors on the street, Pi Robot does not star in the new … Continue reading