5 of the Best Free Linux Robotics Software
Robotics is the branch of artificial intelligence concerned
with the study of robots, automatically guided machines which are able
to carry out tasks and functions on their own. Robotics covers a wide
spectrum of areas including the design, construction, operation and
manufacture of robots.
Linux plays an important role in powering robots. There are
many notable examples of Linux in action in the robotics world. For
example Nasa's space exploration robot K10, which can be
remotely operated on planetary surfaces, runs on custom, embedded
software on a dual-core Linux laptop. Another impressive robot is the
humanoid robot, HOAP-1, in which RTLinux has been deployed by Fujitsu.
Also worthy of a mention is the Katana Robotic arm, which comes with an
embedded controlboard running Linux 2.4.25 with Xenomai Hard Real Time
extensions.
Building a robot can require considerable expertise and
creativity given that it involves skills from many disciplines such as
hardware design, control systems design, mechanical design, as well as
embedded firmware and sensor selection. Moreover, building robots can
be expensive as there are many different parts to purchase including
electronics, sensors, and microcontroller parts. One important way to
keep the development costs to a minimum is by using simulation
environments. These provide an inexpensive way to test and measure the
robotics algorithms, and at the same time encourage experimentation.
Linux has a good range of open source toolkits for building
robotic control systems. To provide an insight into the open source
software that is available, we have compiled a list of 5 of our
favorite robotics software. Hopefully, there will be something of
interest here for anyone who wants to conduct research in robot systems.
So, let's explore the 5 robotics software at hand.
For each application we have compiled its own portal page, a full
description with an in-depth analysis of its features, screenshots,
together with links to relevant resources and reviews.
Return to our complete collection of Group
Tests, identifying the finest Linux software.
Last Updated Saturday, April 13 2013 @ 06:09 PM EDT
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