Thomas the Tank Engine Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 (edited) Quote I recently got a PR blast with a headline that caught my eye: "Big prospects for tiny Linux autopilot." The blast was from a company called Erle Robotics, which makes inexpensive components for DIY robotics projects and drones. The product in question, the PXFmini, is a shield designed for the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero that includes a suite of sensors that just a few years ago would have cost thousands of dollars, including gravity, gyroscope, compass, pressure, temperature, and battery sensors. But it was Linux specifically that caught my eye. Linux has emerged as the most exciting robotics platform in use. The systems built using Linux range from bots hacked together in home garages--the kind that might use components from a supplier like Erle Robotics--to the most sophisticated machines coming out of the fastest-growing hardware startups in the Bay Area. Seemingly overnight, our robotic future, which is now quite visible in the near distance, promises to be largely Linux-based. Naturally, a lot of it has to do with the proliferation of Raspberry Pi micro controllers, which are based on an ARM processor that can run Linux. The ARM architecture means that some portions of Linux haven't been ported to the Rasp Pi, but for basic robotics controls (anything short of 3D mapping and navigation with a Microsoft Kinect, say) the Raspberry Pi with Linux provides the perfect brains for some very capable robots and drones. And then there's a little thing called the Robotic Operating System (ROS). The name is deceptive because ROS isn't an operating system, per se. Rather, it's an open-source framework originally developed by Willow Garage, released under a free license in 2009, and currently maintained by the Open Source Robotics Foundation. In 2014, OSRF announced plans to add ARM Linux support to the Robot Operating System (ROS). http://www.zdnet.com/article/cloud-computing-goes-hybrid-as-the-norm-aws-vmware-azure-duke-it-out/ Edited February 10, 2016 by Daniel F. removed offending comment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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