Microsoft Robotics Blog : Packages

Technologies to support autonomous navigation from SRI International

JosephFernando — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:13:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce that SRI International, a Microsoft Robotics Studio partner, has now released its Karto SDK that is designed to work with Microsoft Robotics Studio. The Karto SDK provides developers with the ability to easily add autonomous navigation for their robotics applications. Included in this release are the following services:

Mapping: use sensor input to create a precise virtual model in real time of the robot’s environment while the robot is moving
Path Planning: compute the optimal path to take from the robot’s current position to a specified target position
Exploration: determine the sequence of moves the robot will make in order to completely cover an area so that all reachable locations have been traversed
Obstacle Avoidance: detect previously unknown objects or environmental features and modify the robot’s path accordingly while maintaining a viable path to its target destination

By using all of the modules of the Karto SDK in conjunction with each other, developers can create fully autonomous, self-exploring robots for indoor applications.

Karto supports Sick or Hokuyo laser rangefinders for mapping.

Here are some cool pictures illustrating the use/operation:

Picture1: Exploration points generated by Karto in a partially explored map.

Picture 2: Path generated by Karto to one of the exploration points.

In this demo you can see an autonomous, self exploring robot: Movie 1

The software can be downloaded by requesting a 30 day evaluation license from: http://www.kartorobotics.com/products/licensing.php

thanks

Joseph Fernando

Robotic Vision Solutions: VOLTS-IQ SDK 1.6

JosephFernando — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:31:00 GMT

Braintech Inc, a Microsoft Robotics Studio partner has now released Version 1.6 of its VOLTS-IQ SDK. This SDK is designed to work with Microsoft Robotics Studio and provides developers with the ability to easily add visual intelligence to their robotics applications. VOLTS-IQ services provide capabilities to recognize and track objects or distinct patterns. Included in this package are the following services:

Vi_Tracker: tracks user-defined objects within the camera view, while making target position and orientation information available to other services.

Vi_MultiviewObjectDetector: recognition and localization service that can detect multiple objects, and multiple object types, in an image at the same time. The service can be trained to recognize an object from multiple viewpoints and exports the position of objects that are detected.

Vi_FaceDetector: a service that can detect one or more faces in images obtained from a webcam service.

Vi_MotionDetector: a service that can alert you or your robot when it detects motion in a scene.

Vi_WebCam: webcam service that provides video and image feeds to other MSRS services from most USB cameras.

Vi_IPCamera: a webcam service that provides image feeds from remote IP cameras, including Motion JPEG cameras.

Vi_MissileLauncher: a device service for controlling a DreamCheeky USB dart launcher.
... and more. The complete service directory is available here.

VOLTS-IQ SDK 1.6 can be downloaded from here.

Thanks

Joseph Fernando

Samples Update for Microsoft Robotics Studio (1.5)

Henrik Frystyk Nielsen — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 03:47:00 GMT

The Microsoft Robotics Studio Samples Update package contains a new set of samples and tutorials that were not included in the Microsoft Robotics Studio (1.5) release as well as a few bug fixes to existing samples. The Samples Update package covers the following two areas:

A complete redesign of the LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT Services that greatly facilitates use in Microsoft Visual Programming Language. The new services provide full access to LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT ranging from a new brick service to services representing all of the standard motors and sensors. In addition, services are now also provided for a set of new sensors from HiTechnic and MindSensors. The redesigned LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT services do not interfere with the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT services provided as part of Microsoft Robotics Studio (1.5) and can be used completely side-by-side. Check out the new tutorials and samples!

Code for two new service tutorials (service tutorial 8 and service tutorial 9) illustrating how to declare generic DSS contracts as well as how to implement and extend such generic contracts in ways that preserves backwards compatibility. The service tutorials also demonstrate how to implement multi-headed services where a service can be implemented as if it contained multiple related but independent service instances operating completely side-by-side.

Bug fixes include:

Updated SimuluationTutorial2 Visual Studio solution to include simple dashboard project and its dependencies to avoid assembly version mismatch if compiling only SimulationTutorial2.