ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas Celebrates 20 Members!
/It is our pleasure to announce that the ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas is officially 20 members strong!
Logos for the 20 official members of the Consortium, April 2014
Our brief history: The ROS-Industrial Open Source project began as the collaborative endeavor of Yaskawa Motoman Robotics, Southwest Research Institute, and Willow Garage to support the use of ROS for industrial automation. The software repository, originally hosted on Google Code, and now on GitHub, was founded by Shaun Edwards (SwRI) in January 2012. Led by SwRI, the ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas launched in March 2013. As you might have guessed from the name, there is also a ROS-I Consortium Europe, led by Fraunhofer IPA in Stutgart, Germany. The Consortium exists to support the ROS-Industrial community by providing training, technical support, and setting the roadmap for ROS-I.
The Consortium also fosters new open-source code creation to meet specific near term needs of members through Focused Technical Projects. Currently, three such projects are underway:
- Robotic Blending, Milestone 1, championed by Spirit AeroSystems
- CMM-Accelerated Robotic Routing, championed by Cessna Aircraft Company (Textron)
- Minimum Cycle-Time Path Planning, championed by Idexx Laboratories
At the annual meeting last month, four new Focused Technical Projects were announced, and are available to join:
- Heavy Helper
- Multipass Robotic Welding
- Robotic CNC Machining for Soft Materials (i.e., AL and CF)
- Robotic Machine Tending
We are grateful to our members for their support and enthusiasm! If you are interested in learning more about the latest Focused Technical Projects, or about the Consortium in general, please contact us.