Featured ROSCon 2018 Talks

As we start to get ready for ROSCon 2019 we will be featuring talks from the ROSCon 2018 archive to help inspire people to submit their own talks as well as give people a sense of what they can look forward to at ROSCon 2019!

Reminders:

  • The call for workshops is open
  • Applications for the Diversity Scholarship is open
  • Registration is open
  • Sponsorship opportunities are available

Astrobee: ROS-based Flight Software for a Free-flying Robot in Microgravity
Andrew Symington (NASA, Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies & KBRWyle) Video Slides

Astrobee is a free-flying robot designed by NASA to operate alongside astronauts inside the International Space Station, where it will carry out scientific and surveying tasks in microgravity. The robot can autonomously mate with a docking station to recharge, as well as perch to existing ISS handrails using a three degrees of freedom arm. Its open source flight software stack is built on ROS Kinetic, uses a delay-tolerant DDS bridge for space-to-ground communication, and is accompanied by a Gazebo simulator that enables researchers to develop and test behavioral algorithms. This presentation covers the the software architecture, challenges faced during the development process, facilities for testing prototype hardware, and broad lessons we have learned over the last three years.


Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

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ROS 2 on Autonomous Driving Vehicles
Christopher Ho (Apex.AI, Inc), Sumanth Nirmal (Apex.AI, Inc), Dejan Pangercic (Apex.AI, Inc), Shinpei Kato (Tier IV, Inc), Jan Becker (Apex.AI, Inc) Video Slides

Over the past 10 years, ROS 1 has proven itself to be the framework of choice for prototyping and developing large robotic applications. Many limitations preventing ROS 1 from being used in production applications have been discovered over the years, and after significant prototyping, ROS 2 makes great headway in making ROS 2 suitable for production. Autonomous driving is the next great technology waiting to be realized and transform our society. A full autonomous driving stack is inarguably a large robotic system, and consequently ROS 2 is the right framework upon which to develop a full autonomous driving stack. To prove this, we have developed a part of the autonomous driving stack based on ROS 2.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • The call for workshops is open
  • Applications for the Diversity Scholarship is open
  • Registration is open
  • Sponsorship opportunities are available

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

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Launch for ROS 2
William Woodall (Open Robotics) Video Slides

Over the past half year we have been working on the new launch system for ROS 2 based on roslaunch from ROS 1. The goal of this presentation is to summarize the state of the design document for launch, describe the current state of the reference implementation, and dive into the rationale behind some of the design decisions. The attendee should come away with a deeper understanding of the differences between roslaunch from ROS 1 and the new ros2 launch tool. We’ll also have some short demonstrations to show how these differences might be useful to everyday users.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • The call for workshops is open
  • Applications for the Diversity Scholarship is open
  • Registration is open
  • Sponsorship opportunities are available

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

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Gazebo renders the moon
Ian Chen (Open Robotics), Mark Allan (KBR, Inc.) Video Slides

Over the past couple of years, Open Robotics collaborated with NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group to develop the Resource Prospector lunar driving simulator. In particular, a strong focus was placed on generating high quality visual images from the cameras on the simulated rover. This resulted in in several improvements made to Gazebo, including support of high resolution digital elevation maps, improved shadows, integration of custom material shaders, and a new lens flare plugin. This presentation will show the resulting lunar terrain environment created in Gazebo and discuss some of the challenges in modeling the environment.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • The call for workshops closes today. Submit here.
  • The call for talks and videos is now open See the call for proposals for templates and submission links.
  • Applications for the Diversity Scholarship is open
  • Registration is open
  • Sponsorship opportunities are available

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

Hands-on ROS 2: A Walkthrough
Mikael Arguedas (Open Robotics), Karsten Knese (Robert Bosch LLC) Video Slides

In this talk we show the current state of ROS 2 features through hands-on demonstrations. We guide the developer through a set of features and functionalities of ROS 2 beginning with creating a simple “hello world” package and consecutively increasing functionality. We show how to launch multiple nodes, how lifecycle nodes can be used to bootstrap a complete system, through to how the ROS 2 security features can be utilized to secure applications. This talk is meant to highlight the newly available features and tools of ROS 2 and aims to incline developers to start working with it.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • The call for talks and videos is now open See the call for proposals for templates and submission links.
  • Applications for the Diversity Scholarship is open
  • Registration is open
  • Sponsorship opportunities are available

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

Bringing ROS to the Largest High School Robotics Competition
Marshall Massengill (The Zebracorns, VMware), Kevin Jaget (The Zebracorns, Nvidia), Megan Wenzinger (The Zebracorns, IBM), Niall Mullane (The Zebracorns, NCSSM), Anja Sheppard (The Zebracorns, UT Dallas), Olivia Fugikawa (The Zebracorns, NCSSM), Ryan Greenblatt (The Zebracorns, Brown University) Video Slides

FIRST, or For The Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an international organization focused on engaging students through STEM. This year, our team - The Zebracorns - was the first in the high school FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) to control our robot entirely using ROS. In our presentation, we’ll introduce the unique challenges presented by FRC with restricted hardware options, time, and resources. We’ll talk about our motivation for implementing ROS, the specific application within FRC, and our ambitions for the future of ROS within the FRC community.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • The call for talks and videos is now open See the call for proposals for templates and submission links.
  • Applications for the Diversity Scholarship is open
  • Registration is open
  • Sponsorship opportunities are available

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

Lessons learned building a self-driving car on ROS
Nicolo Valigi (Cruise Automation) Video Slides

Cruise Automation’s self driving car runs on top on ROS. This talk will share some of the lessons we learned while scaling up the ROS stack to a very complex Robotics problem and 500+ engineers. We will talk about performance, reliability, code organization and health, and the ways we have found ROS to excel or fall short.

ROSCon Reminders:


Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

Cloud-based Mapping and Localization in Dynamic Warehouse Environments
Michael Grupp (Magazino GmbH), Andre Gaschler (Google Germany GmbH), Mirko Ferrati (Magazino GmbH), Christoph Schütte (Google Germany GmbH) Video

Reliable, life-long mapping and localization is an essential component for mobile robotics in continuously changing warehouse environments. We present a system based on Cartographer in which robots run finite-history SLAM for low-latency localization and continuously stream local map updates to a cloud service. The cloud component assembles and optimizes a globally consistent pose graph out of the streaming data of the agents. Magazino piloted cloud-based Cartographer in a customer warehouse using its fleet of mobile picking robots. By sharing the local map changes among each other, the robots were able to maintain their localization accuracy while dealing with dynamic environments.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • One Week Left! The call for talks and videos is now open See the call for proposals for templates and submission links.
  • Registration is open
  • Sponsorship opportunities are available

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

aibo development using ROS
Tomoya Fujita (Sony Corporation) Video Slides

On January 11, 2018, Sony Corporation released aibo (https://aibo.sony.jp/). aibo that is back on market beyond the time of 12 years constructed via robotics framework named ROS. In this presentation, we introduce examples of development in aibo from the point of view of ROS, starting with introduction of aibo, architecture, embedded technology, real-time optimization, robot development environment, simulation etc.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • Less than one week left! The call for talks and videos is now open See the call for proposals for templates and submission links.
  • Registration is open

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

RViz – The tale of a migration to ROS 2.0
Andreas Holzner (TNG Technology Consulting GmbH) Video Slides

RViz is now available for ROS 2, including most of its features. This talk will look back at the migration of RViz from ROS 1 to ROS 2, and present the main challenges and changes performed during the migration. It will focus on a new package, rviz_visual_testing_framework, that makes writing automated UI tests - including the 3D rendering part of RViz – possible.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • Less than one week left! The call for talks and videos is now open See the call for proposals for templates and submission links.
  • Registration is open

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

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Planning to Plan: New Flexible Navigation Interfaces
David V Lu!! (Locus Robotics) Video Slides

The navigation stack is one of the core components of the ROS Ecosystem. This talk will present lessons learned from maintaining the navigation stack over the past five years, and discuss a new generation of interfaces for increased functionality. This talk will cover: the new nav_core2 interfaces, with a new Costmap interface; the locomotor package which replaces move_base and demonstrates new functionality; and ROS 2.0 + Navigation.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • CFP Deadline is Monday! The call for talks and videos is now open See the call for proposals for templates and submission links.
  • Registration is open

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

1 Like

Deterministic, asynchronous message driven task execution with ROS
Brian Cairl (Fetch Robotics Inc.) Video Slides

This presentation discusses the building of a task-driven, message-synchronized execution abstraction layer on top of ROS’s message passing, aiming to mimic a deterministic system while continuing to use a non real time operating system. We discuss the overall structure of the framework, as well as the details of various capture and synchronization policies, and the profiling and diagnostics of task executions. We further discuss methods for using simulators and bagfiles in conjunction with the synchronization framework for repeatable testing and issue reproduction.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • Early registration is open! The deadline for early registration is August 24th, 2019 (or until the limited supply of early registrations sells out, whichever comes first).

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor Amazon, and to all our Gold Sponsors: Acutronic Robotics, ADLINK, Apex.ai, Clearpath Robotics, eProsima, Fetch Robotics, iRobot, Microsoft, Rapyuta Robotics, ROBOTIS, Silexica, Tier IV, Toyota Research Institue, and Ubuntu.

Deterministic reversible debugging of ROS nodes with Mozilla rr
Juraj Oršulić (Faculty of Electric Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb) Video Slides

In this talk we give a short introduction to Mozilla rr, a powerful C/C++ debugging tool for Linux, and show how to more effectively debug ROS nodes by republishing messages from rr recordings. Mozilla rr serves as a gdb (GNU debugger) replacement which efficiently records the execution of a process and then provides repeatable deterministic debugging of the recording, enabling a very powerful debugging experience with reverse execution.

ROSCon Reminders:

  • Early registration is open! The deadline for early registration is August 24th, 2019 (or until the limited supply of early registrations sells out, whichever comes first).

Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor and Gold Sponsors for supporting ROSCon.

Getting involved in ROS 2 development
Deanna Hood (Open Robotics), Mikael Arguedas (Open Robotics)

This talk gives an introduction on how to contribute to ROS 2. Specifically this talk shows you how to take a ROS2 feature from a design discussion, to a concept document , to a series of pull requests, through to a released feature. The talk also discusses the process of patching bugs: moving from an answers.ros.org bug, through trouble shooting, bug report generation, and finally submitting a patch. If you’ve never contributed to open source patching your own bug is a great place to start and this talk will guide you through the process.


ROSCon Reminders

ROSCon registration is still open! The deadline for regular price admission is just two weeks away. Get your tickets now before the prices go up.


Thank you again to our Platinum Sponsor and Gold Sponsors for supporting ROSCon.

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