1. Microsoft Robotics Studio

2. OutlineOutline Why Robotics? Microsoft Robotics Studio Key Features Partners Program Run-Time Visual Programming Language Samples

3. Why Robotics? … Imagine being present at the birth of a new industry. It is an industry based on groundbreaking new technologies, wherein a handful of well-established corporations sell highly specialized devices for business use and a fast-growing number of start-up companies produce innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other interesting niche products. But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare. In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one can say with any certainty when--or even if--this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does, though, it may well change the world…. Bill Gates “A Robot in Every Home” Scientific American, January 2007

4. Microsoft Robotics Studio (MRS) Key Features Scalable, extensible runtime compatible with 8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit systems Ageia PhysX Engine (visual simulation environment) Compatible with all.NET languages (Python, C/C++, C#) Visual Programming Language (VPL) Libraries services Tutorials

5. MRS Partner Program: Robot Companies Braintech Inc. Cerebellum Automation CoroWare ED Co., Ltd. fischertechnikGraupnerHanulKid InTouch Health JADI, Inc. KUKA Roboter LEGO Systems A/S Lynxmotion, Inc. Mostitech Co., Ltd. Parallax, Inc. Phidgets, Inc. RE2, Inc. RidgeSoft, LLC RoboDynamics Corp. Robo3 Co., Ltd. RoboticsConnection Senseta, Inc. SRI International Surveyor Corp. VIA Technologies, Inc. White Box Robotics Yujin Robot

6. MRS Partner Program: Solution Providers Camelot Robotics Aps. LG CNS Co., Ltd. Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd. ROBOSOFT SharpLogic Software

7. MSR Highlights Supported Hardware: Lego Mindstorm RCX, NXT, iRobot Roomba, Phidgets interface boards, sensors and actuators, fishertechnik Visual Programming Language (VPL): Targeted for beginners through advanced developers needing rapid prototyping. VPL offers features to get started quickly. Collections of connected services can be created and exposed by dragging objects from a toolbox. Simulator: It can be used by advanced developers to create complex scenarios with high demands for fidelity, visualization and scaling, or to help novices with little coding experience. Deployment Tool (DssDeploy): Facilitates deploying the runtime code using only the dependencies required for a particular robot (manifest).

8. MRS Runtime Robotic applications orchestrate actuators in response to sensory data. There is a Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR), which is written for the CLR 2.0. CCR is based on asynchronous message passing and provides an execution context for services. The Decentralized System Services (DSS) provide a service-hosting environment and a set of basic services for debugging, logging, monitoring, security, discovery, and data persistence.

9. Orchestration A robotics application with three sensors and three actuators. Note the direction of the arrows

10. Runtime Services Activation: search, load, start services or sets of services Discovery: Services can discover each other Storage: Services can persist their state as XML or other formats DebuggingDiagnostic

11. Visual Programming Language VPL is a dataflow-based programming model. A VPL program consists of a set of workers who perform their task as they receive their data. VPL is well suited for programming concurrent or distributed processing scenarios.

12. VPL Example: Y = MX * B Tool Box with drag-n-drop objects Diagram Design Area

13. VPL Overview VPL is based on the data-flow model Every “actor” node executes its script as soon as all its data is available

14. Interacting with Services Initializing the runtime: # Start runtime services by running the studio console as administrator dsshost /p:5000 # Start Web Browser and point at runtime: http://localhost:5000 # This will get you a screen like the one shown in the next slide http://localhost:5000

15. Interacting with Services All MRS services and resources can be accessed from the browser and/or HTML forms Access to system services (monitor and control) Access to running services (monitor and control) Tutorials Demos News Group Developers Wiki Documentation

16. MRS Simulation Challenges: Hardware can be expensive Difficult to trouble shoot Concurrency is difficult to debug Benefits: Low barrier to entry Fast prototyping Education, useful instructional aid Limitations: Lack of noisy data Incomplete and inaccurate models No fine tuning

17. MRS Simulation Overview Simulation Engine Service Renders entities for the physics engine; tracks entire simulation state and provides a service/distributed front end to the simulation. Managed Physics Engine Wrapper Abstracts users from the physics engine API; provides a concise, managed interface to the simulation. Native Physics Engine Library Enables hardware acceleration/emulation Entities Represent hardware and physical objects in the simulation world

18. Simulation Programming Under MRS there are two main pieces involved in a simulation: Entity: Software component that interfaces with the physics engine and the rendering engine. It also exposes high level interfaces to the (real or emulated) hardware and hides the physics APIs. Service: Provides an abstraction to the types and operations being simulated and offers a front end to the entity The MRS documentation includes several samples and tutorials that cover simulation.

19. Tutorials and Samples Topics Programming Languages: C#, VB.NET, Python, VPL Services: Creating, Updating State, Persisting State, Subscribing, Monitoring, and Displaying Hardware: For each of the supported robots, there are documents to guide setting up and testing Basic Robotics: How to access a service, how to coordinate services, abstract Reusable Services, drive-by-wire Simulation Tutorials, And many more…

20. More Information On line resources: http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/ News groups http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgro ups/en- us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.msroboticsst udio&cat=en_US_8C6248FF-7269-A8D9-32F8- 30501C8289A0&lang=en&cr=US MRS Wiki ttp://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Chan nel9.MSRoboticsStudio IPRE Wiki: http://wiki.roboteducation.org http://wiki.roboteducation.org

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