Weekly Robotics #26 17 Feb 2019

1) NASA’s Opportunity Rover Mission on Mars Comes to End.

NASA

INFO: After sending over 1000 commands to restore contact with Opportunity the NASA engineers made the last attempt to revive the rover on 12 of February. The final communication from Opportunity was received on 10th of June, before a Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location. Opportunity mission lasted almost 15 years (the mission goal was for it to last 90 days) and traveled 45 km / 28 mi (the planned distance was 1,100 yd / 1,000 m). If you are interested in Visual Inertial Odometry on Opportunity and Spirit rovers then you might like the publication of the week from Weekly Robotics #17. We really liked the xkcd strip on Opportunity.

2) CARLA Autonomous Driving Challenge.

carlachallenge.org

INFO: CARLA (WR #8) announced an autonomous driving challenge in which agents will have to drive through predefined routes in various conditions. The challenge has 4 tracks: LiDAR + GPS + cameras, cameras only, HD map + LiDAR + cameras + GPS, scene abstraction (no perception involved).

3) Can Reaction Wheels Control a Drone?

YouTube

INFO: In this YouTube video Tom Stanton discusses angular momentum and reaction wheels and try to control a coaxial drone in pitch and roll axes. We’ve found this 25 minutes video to be very informative and a fun watch.

4) List of Open Source Real-Time Operating Systems.

OSRTOS

INFO: The above website contains a list of open source Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS). The Licence and platform column can allow to quickly filter the systems based on your requirements.

5) ROS-Industrial Conference 2018 - Video Sessions.

ROS Industrial

INFO: In the above link you can find references to YouTube video playlists with 4 sessions from last year’s ROS-Industrial conference.

6) Remote Handling at the JET Fusion Experiment.

YouTube

INFO: This video shows how maintenance at the JET fusion experiment are performed. During maintenance 2 articulated booms can be deployed in the experiment area. One of the booms contains dexterous manipulator called MASCOT that can be operated using a haptic device.

7) Publication of the week - Modern Robotics (2017).

Northwestern University

INFO: It’s not a kind of Publication you are used to see in Weekly Robotics but we had to include it. Modern Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control is a book by Kevin M. Lynch and Frank C. Park that covers kinematics, dynamics and control of robots (mostly robotic arms but there is a chapter on wheeled robots too). The book is freely available to download at the above link. In the above page you will also find lots of extra content like Link to Coursera classes, YouTube videos covering the lessons and a 100+ pages exercise book with solutions.

1) Humble Book Bundle: Robotics & IoT.

Humble Bundle

INFO: In this Humble Book Bundle you can get up to 25 Packt published books about Robotics and Internet of Things. By purchasing this bundle you can support charities of your choice and Weekly Robotics.

2) Livox Mid-40 LiDAR Review.

M.Sadowski Blog

INFO: In this blog post Mat reviews Livox Mid-40, a 600$ LiDAR with range of up to 230 meters and 38.4° circular field of view. The review covers both LiDAR performance and available ROS nodes.

Careers

0) Would you like to advertise an open position in a robotics related company?

Weekly Robotics

INFO: If you would like us to include your open position in the hiring section please feel free to send us an e-mail.

1) PAL Robotics (Barcelona, Spain) - Senior Autonomous Navigation Engineer.

INFO: PAL Robotics designs, craft and customize humanoid robots.

2) Sevensense (Zurich, Switzerland) - Various Positions.

INFO: Sevensense develops technology for autonomous indoors and outdoor navigation.

3) Ike (San Francisco, CA, US) - Various Positions.

INFO: Ike is building cutting edge automation technology to help improve the trucking industry.