Virtual community meeting for the ROS-Industrial open source project: http://rosindustrial.org

1. ROS-Industrial Forum
December 5th, 2013

2. Attendee Sound(Chat) Off
• Send a chat message to everyone with:
– Your Name / Company / Developer or User or
Watcher
– E.g.: Clay Flannigan / SwRI / Developer

3. Contact Information
Clay Flannigan
Manager, Robotics &
Automation Engineering
Southwest Research Institute
6220 Culebra Rd.
San Antonio, TX 78251
US
Phone: 210-522-6805
Email: clay.flannigan@swri.org
http://swri.org
http://robotics.swri.org
6 March 2013
Managed by: Southwest Research Institute
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4. Logistics
• Your microphone or telephone is muted
• During Q&A, you can unmute (click on
microphone) or use the chat window
• Majority of meeting will be presentations with
time for open discussion at end
• Send us a chat message if you can’t hear or see
the content
• Meeting is RECORDED
• Slides will be shared after the meeting

5. Agenda
• 10:00 – 10:10 – Introduction (Shaun Edwards
– SwRI)
• 10:10 – 10:35 – BRIDE Presentation
(Alexander Bubeck – Fraunhofer IPA)
• 10:35 – 11:10 – Contributions/Wishlist
(Community, 4 min/presenter)
• 11:10 – 11:30 – General discussion and Q&A
(Shaun Edwards – SwRI)

6. Motivation
•
•
•
•
•
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Gather the community
Open the lines of communications
Promote others contributions
Discuss technology needs
Disseminate information
Answer questions

7. ROS-Industrial
ROS-Industrial is an open-source
ROS-Industrial Program:
project that extends the
• Is supported by a community of
advanced capabilities of the
industrial robotics researchers and
professionals.
Robot Operating System (ROS)
• Provides a one-stop location for industryrelated ROS software.
software to new industrial
• Possesses software robustness and
applications.
reliability that meets the needs of
•
•
•
•
DATA FOR 1993 FROM IFR STATISTICS. DATA FOR 2003 AND 2013 FROM RIA STATISTICS
industrial applications.
Does not replace any one technology
entirely, rather it combines the relative
strengths of ROS and existing technology
Stimulates the development of
hardware-agnostic software by
standardizing interfaces.
Provides an "easy" path to apply cuttingedge research to industrial applications
by using a common ROS architecture.
Provides simple, easy-to-use, welldocumented application programming
interfaces.
For more information:
• “What Can ROS do?” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zO46F1xEzk
• “1 Year Montage” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek8GKqmJ7n0

8. ROS-Industrial Stats (10/13)
ROS-Industrial Repository Stats
ROSindustrial.org Traffic
(Since July move to new site)
(source: https://www.ohloh.net/p/ros-industrial )
1,000
500
0
• 32 total contributors
• 94,870 lines of code
• 27% comments
23 October 2013
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Other Media Stats
50,030 YouTube views
213 Twitter followers
164 user group members
29 related press articles
Managed by: Southwest Research Institute
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9. Why BRIDE?
Current ROS-I Required
Skills
1. Bash scripts/Linux
command line
2. ROS command line
3. C++/Python
4. Launch files
5. Configuration files:
rviz, SRDF, URDF,
YAML
6. Doxygen
7. Moin markup for
the Wiki
8. Version Control/Git
9. IDE (e.g. Eclipse)
10. CAD
Future ROS-I Required
Skills
1. GUI Interaction
2. Python Scripting
(for the hard
stuff)

10. BRIDE
Alexander Bubeck – Fraunhofer IPA

11. Improve your ROS code with ModelDriven-Engineering and save development
time while doing it
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting December 5, 2013
Alexander Bubeck
© Fraunhofer IPA

12. Current challenges in the ROS community
Software quality and reuse
 Reuse …
 Understandable code …
 Standards / Best practices …
 Learning curves …
 Fast releases …
 Distributed development …
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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13. Model driven engineering
In a nutshell
 Development and use of domain
models to represent abstract
knowledge to
M3 Meta-Meta-Model
MOF
• Mechanisms to describe component
frameworks
 Encapsulate complexity
M2 Meta-Model
UML
 Differentiate user roles
• Model of a component framework
 Enforce architectures
Model of
class
Code
M1 Model
 Support reuse
• Models of components or systems
 Object management group
defines multi-layer architecture
M0 Implementation
• Implementation of specific
components
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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14. Software engineering in robotics
Transfer of MDE to ROS
Ecore
M3
M2
OROCO
SDSL
ROS
DSL
UML
SysML
SysML model
M2M
M1
ROS model
M2T
M0
ROS
Component
M2M
OROCOS model
M2T
OROCOS
Conponent
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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15. Software engineering in robotics
Separation of concerns
 Behavior of components correspond to specific concerns of a developer
Computation
Communication
reuse
Coordination
Configuration
Composition
Composition
 Concerns for software components:
Computation
Communication
Coordination
Configuration
Leuze laser scanner
Sick laser scanner
 Reuse of software means exchange or modification of specific concerns
Separation of concerns improves reuse
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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16. Software engineering in robotics
Different types of ROS users
 Domain expert
 System integrator
 Application engineer
 End user (WIP)
 Architect (SysML)
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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17. BRIDE – An Eclipse based MDE-toolchain for ROS
Overview
The BRICS IDE (BRIDE) is an Eclipse distribution including:
 Graphical model editors for different developer roles in a ROS development
 Automatic generation of
 C++ or Python ROS nodes
 Launch files configuring ROS topics, services and parameters
 Separation of ROS independent user code and ROS skeletons
 Integration with Eclipse development environments for C++ and python (CDT
and pydev)
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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18. BRIDE – An Eclipse based MDE-toolchain for ROS
Implementation of MDE in BRIDE
Ecore
M3
M2
ROS DSL
ROS capability
editor
ROS capability
model
M1
M2T
M0
ROS components
(C++, python)
ROSMSG
DSL
SMACH
DSL
ROS system
editor
ROS system
model
ROS coordinator
editor
ROS coordinator
model
M2T
M2T
ROS launch files
ROS yaml
configuration files
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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SMACH python
state machines

19. BRIDE – An Eclipse based MDE-toolchain for ROS
Work flow in practice
 Model driven engineering work flow in practice
Computation
Communication
Coordination
Configuration
Computation
Communication
Coordination
Configuration
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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Coordination building
Composition
System deployment
Composition
Composition
Capability building
Computation
Communication
Coordination
Configuration

20. BRIDE – An Eclipse based MDE-toolchain for ROS
Examples
 Capability editing
 System editing
 Coordinator editing
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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21. Further features
Textual workflow + graphical configuration
• What about textual workflows?
• Standalone M2T compilers
• Xtext based DSL’s
• Integration into the rosbuild system (catkin wip)
• Teaching of application configuration
• Graphical configuration of application during
modeling of coordinator
• Example: “touch-up” of MoveIt! targets
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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22. Further work
Roundtripping + more
 Roundtripping WIP (working for rospy):
 Generating AST based on python-ast and clang
 Parsing of AST for roslib calls
 Generation of DSL based on AST
 Web-based editors
 Automated test generation
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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23. Current challenges in the ROS community
Software quality and reuse -- Recap
 Reuse components by adapting
 Understandable code is created because crosscutting concerns are
separated and the component models document the structure of a ROS
node
 Standards / Best practices can be enforced by reuse of models
 Learning curves change because beginners don’t fight with boost
pointers etc.
 Fast releases can be handled by updating the code templates
 Distributed development is endorsed by communicating with models
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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24. Summary
BRIDE for ROS development
 Separation of concerns, user roles and code can
improve reusability and quality of software
components
 BRIDE, a model driven engineering tool chain,
disseminates these Software Engineering
techniques in the ROS community
 Current released version 0.2:
BRIDE for ROS:
http://wiki.ros.org/bride
sudo apt-get install ros-groovy-bride
 Capability Development and
System Deployment
 Coordinator Development
Contact:
Alexander Bubeck
alexander.bubeck@ipa.fraunhofer.de
Tel: +49 711 970 1314
 Standalone compiler
Acknowledgement to the project FP7-ICT231940-BRICS (Best Practice in Robotics)
www.best-of-robotics.org
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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25. BRIDE for ROS development
Q&A
Example video of developing a component: http://vimeo.com/63575691
ROS-Industrial Quarterly Community Meeting, December 5, 2013
© Fraunhofer IPA
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26. Contributions & Wish List

27. Logistics
• Purpose is to promote a contribution and/or
engage the community to meet a need
• Each person has 4 min. to present (I will be
strict) – The Gettysburg address wasn’t much
longer
• Contact slide will be presented last
• No Q&A, interested parties are encouraged to
follow up outside of the meeting.

28. Presenter Order
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Yaskawa Motoman- Eric Marcil
Caterpillar - Joe Spanier
Canada NRC- Jason Michel Lambert
Delft Robotics Institute - Gijs vd Hoorn (Presented by
Shaun Edwards)
Fraunhofer IPA – Florian Weisshardt
Los Alamos National Laboratory – Brian O’Neil
Alten Mechatronics – Simon Jansen
Georgia Tech - Kelsey Hawkins

29. YASKAWA MOTOMAN- ERIC MARCIL

30. Contact Info.
Eric Marcil
Senior Project Engineer
Yaskawa America Inc.
Motoman Robotic Division
Phone: 514-693-6788
Email:
eric.marcil@motoman.com
www.motoman.com
4 June 2013
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31. CATERPILLAR - JOE SPANIER

32. Need
• Point Creation in MoveIt!
• Ability to create goal points in
space based on coordinates or
clicking on geometry in Move it
• Currently able to create joint
positions in MoveIt! Setup
wizard, but is clunky and not
useful for any hard points where
fine positioning is needed.
– Staple function in traditional OLP
• Simple point to point
programming for controlled
processes

33. Need
• Keyence LJ-V Laser scanner
Driver
• Driver to take data input from
Keyence sensor and compile it
into surface data that can be used
to make decisions on the process
• No Driver implementations
available atm.
• Current data processing done in
Keyence’s box but raw data
output available
• Would like enable:
– On the fly decision about weld
processing
– Automated quality checks
– Elimination of touch sensing for
welding

34. Contact Info.
Joe Spanier
Automation Engineer
Caterpillar Inc
Phone: 309-494-0494
Email:
Spanier_Joseph_M@cat.com
4 June 2013
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35. CANADA NRC- JASON MICHEL LAMBERT

36. Contribution – Canada NRC
• Hardware-In-The Loop
environment for haptic
teleoperation
• SW/HW environment for
prototyping collaborative
manufacturing tasks
– Contact-related tasks
– Tasks requiring empirical knowledge
– E.g. Deburring/polishing, assembly
• Bridges the gap between manual
and fully automated robotic cells
– Keeps experts in the loop
– Broadens the range of applicability
– Programming and execution

37. Contribution – Canada NRC
• Provides and environment
that combines virtual and
hardware elements
– HIL
– Flexibility, fast prototyping
• Medium/long term (2-5 yrs)
• Availability
– Low-level modules part of ROS-I
– Application-specific through
licensing
– Components of robot
manufacturing cells

38. Need – Canada NRC
• Real-time interface
• Integrated package for
real-time
communication with
ROS-I and associated
components (MoveIt,
Gazebo)
• Compatibility with
graphical simulation
software e.g. Simulink
• Most of the building
blocks already exists
(need HW interfaces)

39. Need – Canada NRC
• Would enable
– Development of real-time components
• Dynamics
• Control
– Interaction with industrial manipulators at
the ms-level (KUKA, Comau…)
– Use of high-level tools for
control/algorithm development
– Brings ROS-I closer to the shop floor

40. Contact Info.
Jason Michel Lambert
Research Officer, Robotics and
Automation
Canada’s National Research
Council
Phone: 514.283.9175
Email: michel.lambert@cnrcnrc.gc.ca
www.nrcaerospace.com
4 June 2013
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41. DELFT ROBOTICS INSTITUTE - GIJS VD
HOORN (PRESENTED BY SHAUN
EDWARDS)

42. Contributions
Current:
Future:
• Fanuc & experimental stack
• Improve fanuc_driver (ongoing)
• REP: Standardizing repository
layout and artefact naming
• REP: Generic IO (and reference /
Fanuc implementation)
• Expand set of ROS-I supported
manufacturers
• Fixing bugs, contributing to
other ROS-I projects
– Support packages (urdf,
meshes, config)
– MoveIt configurations
– Kinematics plugins
• Wireshark dissector
simple_message protocol
• Fixing bugs, contributing to
other ROS-I projects

43. Need
• Joint torque / tool force feedback
– Make it possible to measure / report forces on the TCP /
tool
– Currently no support in simple_message protocol
– Also needs manufacturer controller support
– Allows:
• Non-vision based collision handling / teach in / by example
• Applications where tool needs controlled contact with a surface
(or other tool), ie: glueing, scratching, multi-arm manipulation of
objects (holding a box)

44. Need
• Tool velocity control
– Make it possible to control Cartesian tool velocity
– Currently no standardized support
– Allows: visual servoing types of tasks with any ROS-I
compatible manipulator

45. Contact Info
Gijs vd Hoorn
Researcher
Delft Robotics Institute
Technical University Delft
The Netherlands
GitHub: gavanderhoorn
Email : g.a.vanderhoorn@tudelft.nl
robotics.tudelft.nl
4 June 2013
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46. FRAUNHOFER IPA – FLORIAN
WEISSHARDT

47. Factory-in-a-Day
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Project goal: “Develop technologies and business models to reduce the installation time (and
the related cost) from months to one single day.”
18 partners ranging from research institutions and universities to small and medium-sized
companies and industrial partners
Project funded by European Union (EU-FP7), around 8M€ Budget
More details and list of partners at http://www.factory-in-a-day.eu

49. Needs
• Integrated tool chain for developing, testing, installing and
deploying SW components
SW components, tools
SW components, tools,
quality metrics
Continuous integration
and automated testing
Model-Driven Engineering

50. Contribution
• Unified Model-Driven-Engineering Toolchain for
–
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–
component development
System integration
Automated testing
deployment
• Release date:
– Working prototype:
June 2014
– First Released Prototype: October 2014
– Final: October 2015
• Will be open sourced within ROS Industrial under
BSD license

51. Contact Info
Florian Weisshardt
Fraunhofer IPA
Stuttgart, Germany
<Your pic here>
Phone:
+49 711 970 1046
Email:
florian.weisshardt@ipa.fraunhofer.de
http://www.ipa.fraunhofer.de
4 June 2013
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52. LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY –
BRIAN O’NEIL

53. Contact Info.
Brian O’Neil
Postdoctoral Research
Associate
Los Alamos National
Laboratory
Phone: 505-667-9322
Email: oneil@lanl.gov
4 June 2013
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54. ALTEN MECHATRONICS – SIMON
JANSEN

55. Contribution
•
RQT plugin for industrial operators:
Select
Robot
Model
Select launch files
and edit parameters
Integrated
RVIZ
window
Tool for graphical
debugging

56. Contribution
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•
•
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Combines & expands existing plugins to make ROS usable
for industrial operators (rather than ROS developers)
Edit and save parameters in launch files
Easy (graphical) selection of robot model
Release date: Beginning 2014
Seperate RQT plugin
Further ambitions: use ROS for assembly tasks and
imitation learning

57. Needs
•
Support for dual-arm robots
 Planning
 Execution
•
Expand/create simple message protocol to include
standardized interface for I/O devices on robot
motion controller
 Gripper
 Conveyor
 Proximity sensor
•
Quantitative measure of code quality (demand of
industry)

58. Contact Info.
Berend Küpers
Simon Jansen
Sonja Peters
Alten Mechatronics
Phone: +31 (0)40 256 30 80
Email: rosindustrial@alten.nl
www.alten.nl

59. GEORGIA TECH - KELSEY HAWKINS

60. Universal Robot C API Drivers
•
Alternative to existing python drivers
– Faster control loop (125 Hz)
– More functionality exposed
•
Exposed control modes
– Velocity control
– Position/Velocity/Acceleration
– Torque control (TBA)
•
Useful for sensor-based control
– Fast and direct closed loop
– Force control
•
First alpha release today
– Support release over next few months
– Add new functionality/controllers as needed
•
Same repo, hydro-devel-c-api branch
– https://github.com/rosindustrial/universal_robot/tree/hydro-devel-c-api
•
Tutorial code:
http://wiki.ros.org/ur_c_api_bringup

61. C API System Design

62. C API System Design
• Control loop wrapper running on
control box
– Sockets communication w/
simple_message
• UR ROS master controller manager
– Off-robot, ROS-enabled machine
– Mediates communication b/w ROS
and robot
• ros_control framework
– Interfaces for joint actuation modes
(velocity, torque, etc.)
– Controllers are plugins,
read/command interfaces
• Controller plugins
– Communicate w/ ROS through action
servers, topics, services
– Loaded into real-time loop using
controller_manager

63. C API System Design
• Controller manager lets you load,
start, stop, unload controllers
– ROS services, cmd line utility
• Several default controllers already
written
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Joint trajectory controller
Velocity forward
Position/Velocity/Acceleration forward
Various ROS communication controllers
• rqt plugins for starting robot/joint
control
– *Can’t use tablet interface to control
robot* (can use run stop)
– UR Dashboard – buttons for powering
on robot, resetting safety stop, viewing
robot state
– UR Joint Control GUI – moving joints,
reading positions, viewing state
– Very useful for calibration process

64. C API Needs
• Initial testing and bug finding
• Need new controllers written
– Position/Velocity/Acceleration
joint trajectory controller
– Torque controllers
– Better velocity controllers
• Tutorials for writing controllers
• Code cleanup, better
documentation
• Joint limits for controller
interfaces
• Backend controller needs
some development
– Not all functionality exposed
yet (low-level debug info)
• Expand python helper
functionality
• Integrate some controllers into
official ros_controllers repo

65. Contact Info.
Kelsey Hawkins
Robotics PhD Student
Georgia Tech
<Your pic here>
Phone: 919-280-5739
Email: kphawkins@gatech.edu
kelseyhawkins.com
4 June 2013
65

66. General Discussion

67. ROS-I Survey Results
What do you like about ROS-I?
What could be improved?
You can still respond! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XRKNVMK

68. ROS-I Update
• Training material http://aeswiki.datasys.swri.edu/rositraining/E
xercises
• Code review policy http://wiki.ros.org/Industrial/Tutorials/Industr
ialPullRequestReview
• ROS-I Hydro Release in late ‘13 or early ‘14

69. ROS-I Community Forum
• Next meeting: topic focused
• At least 1 in person meeting per year
coinciding with some other conference
• Next meeting: TBD
• Feedback is welcome

70. Thanks to Supporters
I could overload this slide with logos from all
around the world…but I don’t have
permission to use them.
So instead, thanks to all of you. You know who
you are.
GO OPEN SOURCE!!!

71. General Q&A

72. Contact Information
Shaun Edwards
Senior Research Engineer
Southwest Research Institute
6220 Culebra Rd.
San Antonio, TX 78251
US
Phone: 210-522-3277
Email: sedwards@swri.org
www.rosindustrial.org
www.ros.org/wiki/Industrial
6 March 2013
Managed by: Southwest Research Institute
72

73. Backups

74. SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE CHRIS LEWIS

75. Contribution
•
•
Extrinsic Camera Calibration GUI
Performing and Scripting Extrinsic Calibration
–
–
–
multi-camera resection
camera to robot, igps, or other frame
User Selects
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
–
•
•
•
z
y
x
Built in locators
•
•
•
•
–
Cameras
Targets
Triggers
Sequences
Parameters
ROIs
Control -vs- Tie point
Structure only or Resection Only
AR-Tags
Checkerboards
Grid of Circles
Circles
Google Ceres BA implementation
YAML Scripts saved for repeating calibration
Documents Procedure for Consistent re-cal
ROS-I Repo: industrial_calibration in
February 2014

76. Need
• Robot kinematic calibration
• Calibrate robot kinematic
parameters (URDF) using an
accurate external reference
system (possibly a camera?)
• No open source
implementations (that I am
aware of)
• Commercial solutions are
cost prohibitive (partially
due to equipment costs)
• Better kinematics enable:
– CAD to path
– Sensor to path
• Non-precision robot
manufacturing
http://medesign.seas.upenn.edu/index.php/Courses/MEAM420-09C-P1

77. Contact Info.
Chris Lewis
Principal Research Engineer
Southwest Research Institute
<Your pic here>
4 June 2013
Phone: 210 522 6662
Email: clewis@swri.org
77