Open Robotics
Open Robotics is a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California. It is the primary maintainer of the Robot Operating System, and the Gazebo simulator. Its stated mission is to support "the development, distribution and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development". Open Robotics funds its operations through the contributions of various public and private organizations, some of whom also engage its services for the development of various robotics applications, robotics R&D and consulting. Notable sources of past and current funding include DARPA, NASA, Amazon, Bosch, Nvidia and the Toyota Research Institute.
37°27′08″N 122°09′58″W / 37.45224167°N 122.16618889°W
 | |
| Formation | 2012 |
|---|---|
| Type | 501(c)(3) organization |
| Focus | Open-source software |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, California, United States |
Region served | Worldwide |
| Products | Robot Operating System, Gazebo simulator |
| Subsidiaries | Open Source Robotics Corporation, Open Source Robotics Corporation Singapore |
| Website | www.openrobotics.org |
Open Robotics is a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California. It is the primary maintainer of the Robot Operating System, and the Gazebo simulator.[1][2] Its stated mission is to support "the development, distribution and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development".[3]
Open Robotics funds its operations through the contributions of various public and private organizations, some of whom also engage its services for the development of various robotics applications, robotics R&D and consulting.[4] Notable sources of past and current funding include DARPA, NASA, Amazon, Bosch, Nvidia and the Toyota Research Institute.[5][6][7][8]
History
[edit]The beginnings of Open Robotics can be traced to Willow Garage, a robotics research lab and incubator created by Scott Hassan, an early Google engineer and billionaire technology entrepreneur. It was here that the first official Robot Operating System (ROS) distribution was released in May 2010, and quickly gained widespread adoption.[9][1] Willow Garage was gradually dissolved in the ensuing years into several spin-offs, including the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF), which was created in May 2012 to continue to shepherd the development of ROS and the Gazebo simulator.[10]
OSRF's initial backers included Willow Garage[10] and DARPA, which awarded OSRF its first contract to support open source simulation software for the DARPA Robotics Challenge.[11] In subsequent years, OSRF also provided support for NASA's Space Robotics challenge[12] and the DARPA Subterranean Challenge.[13]
In September 2016, a taxable subsidiary named the Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC) was created to foster greater collaboration with industry.[14] Together with OSRF, these two organizations came to be officially known as Open Robotics in May 2017.[14] In 2018, Open Robotics opened its first overseas office in Singapore,[15] and announced its collaboration with the Singapore Government to work on robotics applications for the healthcare sector.[16]
In December 2022, OSRC and OSRC-SG (the Singapore entity) were acquired by Intrinsic, a subsidiary of Alphabet.[17] OSRF remains an independent non-profit.
In April 15th, 2024 the OSRA (THE OPEN SOURCE Robotics Alliance) replaced the OSRC, the OSRC was sold to Intrinsic before the creation of the OSRA initiative, and both of those things are part of a single long-term plan by the OSRF to provide a stable future for ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, and the infrastructure that supports them.
References
[edit]- ^ a b Tellez, Ricardo (9 July 2019). "A History of ROS (Robot Operating System)". The Construct. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ "About -- Gazebo". Gazebo. Archived from the original on 2023-12-17. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
- ^ "Open Source Robotics Foundation". Google Summer of Code. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ "Open Robotics Home Page". Open Robotics. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ Asay, Matt (18 October 2019). "How AWS is helping to open source the future of robotics". AWS Open Source Blog. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ "Sponsors". Open Robotics. Archived from the original on 7 February 2021. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ "Deep Learning and ROS Collide to Bring New Levels of Autonomy to Robots". Nvidia. 17 October 2016. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
- ^ Gerkey, Brian. "Renewed support from Toyota Research Institute". Open Source Robotics Foundation. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ Cardoza, Christina (21 December 2015). "Inside the Robot Operating System, the robotics industry and the Open Source Robotics Foundation". SD Times. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ a b Ackerman, Evan. "Open Source Robotics Foundation Officially Announced". IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ Ackerman, Evan. "DARPA Awards Simulation Software Contract to Open Source Robotics Foundation". IEEE. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
- ^ Hambuchen, Kimberly (15 Sep 2017). "NASA's Space Robotics Challenge: Advancing Robotics for Future Exploration Missions". AIAA SPACE and Astronautics Forum and Exposition. doi:10.2514/6.2017-5120. ISBN 978-1-62410-483-1.
- ^ Chung, Timothy. "DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge". DARPA. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
- ^ a b Gerkey, Brian. "Welcome to Open Robotics". Open Robotics. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ Gerkey, Brian. "New office: Singapore". Open Source Robotics Foundation. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ Sharon, Alita. "Minister Gan Kim Yong announces development of Singapore's first Robotics Middleware Framework at National Health IT Summit". OpenGov Asia. Archived from the original on 16 November 2019. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
- ^ "Alphabet's Intrinsic Acquires Majority of Open Robotics". IEEE Spectrum. 2022-12-15. Retrieved 2022-12-15.