Maritime Robotics SIG Proposal

I would like to propose a new special interest group (SIG) of “Maritime Robotics”.

The Maritime Robotics SIG will support groups and individuals using ROS for robotic applications under and at the water surface. Some distinct issues associated with maritime applications include integration of maritime specific sensors (e.g., Doppler velocity logs, multibeam sonar, etc.), intermittent communication and navigation, the influence of buoyancy and hydrodynamics on mobile platforms and the influence of the underwater/near-surface environment on perception.

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I agree. A lot of robotics work is being done in this field. ROS support for this important domain will be an important addition, that will benefit the marine robotics community.

Agreed. I think ROS could really help to standardize sensor communications and generally speed up development in the marine robotics field.

+1

I’m currently working on an AUV that is in the process of converting from
custom middleware to ROS, and know of two other groups working on porting
their (large scientific) AUVs to ROS.

@bsb808 Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve seen several threads of traffic on related projects in this area that would be good to aggregate.

Since there’s several people interested in participating so I’ve setup a category at: https://discourse.ros.org/c/maritime I slightly reworded your paragraph to change the voice for the about page: About the Maritime Robotics category. And if there’s any other thoughts or discussions any moderator can edit it if there’s a consensus in the threads.

I agree too.

I am in a similar situation as Laura. Last year we decide to convert our
AUV code from MOOS to ROS.

We are going to start this work in January and it would be great to have a
Maritime ROS group to discuss possible solutions.

Agree, we have maintained several maritime platforms under ROS, we are working with Sparus2-like robots, which already use a ROS architecture called COLA2.

This is an excellent and timely proposal, I wholeheartedly support it. -Louis Whitcomb

I agree, this is a good idea.

Hi! I’m interested in this group too. We (university of Girona) have been developing an open source architecture for underwater vehicles for some time named COLA2. Right now I’ve just started an issue in the common_msgs package to include a standard DVL message in ROS (see issue). Please, join the discussion (here or there, I don’y know what is better).

I support this proposal enthusiastically! Marine Robotics is an important application domain that shares some general challenges with other robotics applications, but also poses some unique challenges (such as highly restricted communications). An interest group for maritime robotics makes a lot of sense to me

Super.

I am excited about this and would love to contribute.

Amazing Idea. I look forward to learn more and more and contribute to the community. Currently, i am part of a team of undergraduates and we prototype an AUV and participate in national and international competitions. Our software stack is based on ROS as the middleware. Learning from such a community would be amazing.

I support this proposal. The marine robotics community is starting to adopt ROS more widely. There are a variety of sensors specific to marine robotics that have only nascent support in ROS. Geodetic navigation and the use of frame definitions conventional in marine systems is awkward and would also benefit from community attention.

It’s a good idea!!
I am developing fully autonomous vehicle for Maritime RobotX Competition.(http://ouxt.stars.ne.jp/top/)
We are building our navigation system by using ROS, but we have some difficulties because of few infomation.
Thank you very much!!

This is great. It seems like there was a unaddressed interest in this area. Since the category has been created I’d suggest that everyone share their projects on the new category:

https://discourse.ros.org/c/maritime

When you do so, include a summary of what you’re working on, goals and opportunities for collaboration. It would be helpful to also include a summary of what components you think would be useful for others to reuse, or have potential for reuse that others could try out.

It would also be useful to list pain points or components that you’d like to see from the community. If there’s something that many people want that can define a good jumping off point for a person or group looking for a project.

It’s also good to include links, pictures and videos to help capture people’s attention.