Microsoft Robotics Studio Tandy Trower General Manager Microsoft Robotics Group Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Robotics Studio How we got here Microsofts interest in robotics Engagement with the robotics community Think Week papers The CSA directive Initial research with community leaders

Microsoft Robotics Studio What we learned Great excitement and potential Motivator for science and math Diverse community and skill set Excellent thought leadership Solving hard problems Accessible hardware technology

Microsoft Robotics Studio What we learned Challenges Too much complexity/too many resources required Lack of reusability How to provide for reliability Limited tools and technologies Lack of choice Difficulties in sharing Transference of skills/experience …

Microsoft Robotics Studio A development platform for the robotics community, supporting a wide variety of users, hardware, and application scenarios Runtime Concurrency Concurrency Services infrastructure Services infrastructure Services and Samples Samples and tutorials Samples and tutorials Robot services Robot services Robot models Robot models Technology services Technology services Microsoft Robotics Studio Authoring Tools Simulation Tool Simulation Tool Visual Programming Language Visual Programming Language

Microsoft Robotics Studio What is a robotics application? An application is a composition of loosely- coupled components concurrently executing Orchestration of sensors/actuators User interface Behavior Motor Orchestrator Bumper (Sensor) Infrared Detector (Sensor) Bumper (Sensor) Motor Message Box (Actuator)

Microsoft Robotics Studio Key runtime features Concurrency and coordination runtime Makes writing and managing asynchronous processes easy Avoids need to understand manual threading, semaphores, etc. Decentralized system services Makes state observable, easily accessible Provides for reusability and failure tolerance Supports remote/distributed execution Makes the programming model scalable

A service Has structured state Interacts using messages over ports Supports handlers (encapsulate behaviors) Basic operations State retrieval and manipulation Create and terminate Notifications Port ServiceService State Handlers FIFO Microsoft Robotics Studio Services – the basic building block

Support dynamic discovery Restartable Provide simple abstraction for hardware and software Provide aggregated, compositional functionality Sensor fusion Motor drive Inherently distributed and asynchronous Can have partners Port ServiceService State Handlers FIFO

Robotics Studio Runtime Joystick service UI service Microsoft Robotics Studio Interaction through the browser Service state observable at all levels of the application Services are capable of providing rich representation of data Robot Motor services Sensor services

Browser Robot Dashboard ScriptingConnect Robotics Studio Runtime JS Service Motor services Sensor services Microsoft Robotics Studio Driving a robot with the browser and JScript

Microsoft Robotics Studio Application deployment models Supports standalone and distributed processing scenarios Disconnected autonomous operation (with optional networked monitoring) Distributed execution (execution across compute units) Connected operation (remote execution on PC)

Microsoft Robotics Studio Microsoft Robotics Studio Extensible to a wide variety of hardware

Microsoft Robotics Studio Authoring tools Simulation visualization tool High resolution 3D rendering Visual and physics views High performance physics engine PhysX supplied by Ageia Technology Optional hardware acceleration Makes technology accessible Enables fast prototyping and debugging Extensible by code or data

Microsoft Robotics Studio Authoring tools Web browser based programming/control Scripting (e.g., JScript) Windows Gadgets Supported by multiple programming languages Microsoft Visual Studio and VS Express (e.g., C#, VB.Net) Microsoft Iron Python 3rd party languages

Microsoft Robotics Studio Authoring tools Visual Programming Tool Dataflow editing Simple connections Building blocks Model checking Code generation Dashboards Robot models Novice to expert NOTE: Not included in the June 20 technical preview!

Microsoft Robotics Studio Services and samples Over 15 tutorials VB.Net, C#, JScript Basic input and output Autonomous navigation Support for LEGO® Mindstorms® RCX LEGO® Mindstorms® NXT fischertechnik® MobileRobots Pioneer P3 Much more coming…stay tuned!

Microsoft Robotics Studio Community Robotics Developer Center website Downloads Bug reporting BlogsNewsgroups Channel 9 videos and wiki Technical Preview is available for free download

Microsoft Robotics Studio University support Bryn Mawr College Carnegie Mellon University Cornell University Georgia Tech Korea Institute of Science and Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stanford University University of Pennsylvania University of Pisa University of Southern California University of Washington

Summary Microsoft Robotics Studio A new application development platform for the robotics community, designed for a wide variety of users, hardware, and scenarios Designed to address some of the common challenges facing those developing robot applications Concurrency and distribution Scalability Code reuse and reliability Authoring

Summary Broad third party support

Summary Enabling the robotics community Creating a platform that supports enabling contributions in different domains Hardware development Low-level software and high-level behavior and orchestration Development tools UX and simulation

Summary Enabling the robotics community Providing choice Providing a growth path

A Closing Comment Looking to the past Looking to the future The second age of the PC

Download the community technical preview Download the community technical preview Microsoft Robotics Studio

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