Listen to CTO Ryan Gariepy join ROS Developers Podcast host Ricardo Tellez, to talk about how Clearpath is using ROS for field service robots. Some key takeaways from the podcast pertain to how Clearpath is using ROS, the superiority of ROS, and the future of ROS.
ROS, or Robot Operating System, is a meta-operating system for robots. Clearpath’s robots come pre-equipped with ROS, and they are the first field robotics company in the world to use ROS in their products. Gariepy explains how he uses Vim for coding with ROS because of its simplicity, instead of other popular text editors like Emacs or Eclipse. He also believes that ROS capabilities can be further improved by testing new packages such as Python. He indicates what the future can bring for ROS at Clearpath, for example looking at partnering with newer open-source efforts, such as Google for the Cartographer open slant system they are developing.
As to the future of ROS, Clearpath is contributing by making the majority of its simulations and drivers publically available, and are currently co-maintainers of the ROS drivers mass-repository. On this note, Gariepy would recommend that start-ups use ROS to save time and money, and to gain access to other tools that are part of the ROS ecosystem, and encourages the programming community to keep working on ROS.
Further Reading