Microsoft Formally Releases Robotics Software

futuresheet writes "Microsoft formally released its robotics software yesterday, giving would-be robot builders a new tool to make them do the things they do. The license for the software is $399, and the 'standard' Pioneer P3DX robot that's made for home use is $40,000. Just the same, if you want to give it a try, it is downloadable for free for non-commercial use, and includes a simulator to try things out on your computer." From the article: "It represents a new effort for the company that has Chairman Bill Gates raving about potential growth in a robotics industry that's already worth an estimated $11 billion a year or more. '[A]s I look at the trends that are now starting to converge, I can envision a future in which robotic devices will become a nearly ubiquitous part of our day-to-day lives,' Gates writes in the January issue of Scientific American. Microsoft is not making robots. Its Robotics Studio is software designed to program the devices to collect data from an array of sensors and perform all manner of functions."

There are many OSS alternatives

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Give the amount of OSS out there fore robotics, would you really want to be Borged?

Rossum: http://rossum.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net], Lejos: http://lejos.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net], and many others.

Personally the thought of little Redmondiods running around BSODing is very disturbing.

Other Cheaper Compatible Robots

[s31523]

The /. blurb mentions a 40K robot "for home use" but according to the links on the M$ website there are plenty of other compatible robots, like the LEGO Mindstorms [lego.com] which has a MSRP of a mere US$ 249.99. With these kind of prices, I think this might be a fun hobby to get the kids into...

Re:Does it run on Linux?

[Behemoth]

It may be a little off topic, but it seems worthwhile to plug to a nice GPL'd robotics package which runs on *nix, has built in simulators for 2D and 3D, and supports a lot of COTS robots (including Roombas):

Player/Stage: http://playerstage.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

Probably not exactly the same target audience as MS's SDK, but we're all geeks, here, right?

$40,000???!!!

[KlomDark]

What on earth is going to be in the kit that is worth $40,000?? That's insane. You can get a Programmable Logic Controller (Omron or Allen Bradley), several industrial grade servomotors or stepper motors, the motor drive unit, and a pile of sensors/buttons/actuators/etc off ebay for around $2000.

In 1991 I worked for a company that did industrial automation fabrication and build this relatively large (Around 40x30 feet of machinery) automated cutting/welding system with two MIG welders (One mounted on a track to adjust for different sizes, anywhere from 40 feet to 4 feet and accurate to 1/100th of an inch), and all the raw material handlers to feed parts into the welders, and we had MAYBE $50,000 in hardware costs.

Even a hard core GE/Fanuc industrial grade CNC control head is no more than $25,000. This thing had better have the capabilities of R2D2.

Sounds like a complete ripoff.

And every automation control system I've used, PLC or CNC, has had the development software free with the unit. Only thing you'd have to pay for was the programming console, which has since been reduced to software that runs on Windows, so needing only a serial or USB cable between the two.

Do I sound really shocked by the price? I am!

Re:Looks like somebody

[SnowZero]

MS Robotics Studio was created after Player/Stage became successful. Go look up the features of Player/Stage and then tell me how Robotics Studio is a huge step forward.

Re:At least it isn't 400 Euros

[wellingj]

I think you missed the point that this has already been done in Linux.
So Microsoft is the one doing the 'emulating' and passing it off for 'inovation'.
Its called Player/Stage/Gazebo and it has been out for a couple of years.
Here's the proof from SourceForge:

Date: 2002-01-11 15:48
Summary: Player/Stage 1.1 released

http://sourceforge.net/projects/playerstage [sourceforge.net]

Re:Looks like somebody

[SnowZero]

1) As far as I can tell, Player/Stage/Gazebo is limited to flat earth. (MSRS is not, arbitrary terrain)

Yes it does [sourceforge.net]. First two hits when you google "gazebo terrain".

2) Part of the .NET framework there is a wealth of functionality: mathematics functions, quaternions, etc.

2b) Loss of portability to other operating systems.
This is not something to be overlooked, given the prevalence of Linux for headless embedded devices (i.e. robots). If you like object-oriented development, Player has bindings for C++, Java, Ruby, and Python.

Especially when you are simulating discrete objects. The ability to have TableObject *table and Robot *robot, instead of a bunch of c-calls, is a blessing and speeds up your development time.

Well, if you want to argue the simulator sucks, then I won't necessarily disagree with you. That's not the interface a robot *user* would be dealing with however, only the creator of a custom robot. A C++ interface for the robot "driver" would be nice, but I can understand the portability reasons for choosing plain C. In my graduate-level course on physical simulation, I did use C++ for my simulator. I don't think it was a huge advantage however, since everything was implemented as a large system of ODEs anyway, and the object oriented view was just translating to and from that (following the Baraff/Witkin approach).

(I know, this is my day job)

Guess what my day [cmu.edu] job [google.com] is [post-gazette.com]?

This is also why a lot of people choose DirectX over OpenGL.

It seems to me that the only people who prefer DirectX are game programmers. Scientific/visualization/engineering apps are still largely OpenGL. This is partly due to inertia, of course, but I'm sure they appreciate the portability too, since important scientific and engineering apps tend to work on more than one OS.