Recap: Expanding Horizons: ROS-Industrial Asia Pacific Workshop 2017 - Singapore

The ROS-Industrial Asia Pacific Consortium (ROS-I Asia Pacific) hosted its annual workshop May 25-26 in Singapore. International, regional and local speakers discussed the importance of ROS and its capabilities. The event took place one week before the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2017), also in Singapore.

More than 80 participants enjoyed the two-day ROS-I Asia Pacific event, which featured exciting presentations and demonstrations of ROS-Industrial uses and product success stories. Key speakers from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Open Robotics, and Fraunhofer IPA presented the progress over the past year since ROS-I Asia Pacific was formed through a memorandum of understanding between SwRI, the Singapore-based Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre (ARTC) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

dr. David low (ARTC CEO) kicked off the workshop.

Tully Foote (Open Robotics) presented on going developments with ROS and ROS2.

The workshop highlighted various industries using ROS and ROS-Industrial to support their robotic software needs. Examples included Robonaut 2 on the International Space Centre (NASA), GUI interfacing with HiWIN (PPM AS), Food handling (Blue WorkForce Robotics) and other manufacturing topics.

Many presented ROS and ROS-Industrial applications and uses in their own products. Sponsored by ABB, guests were treated to an abundance of networking opportunities during tea and lunch breaks.

Dr. Kimberly hambuchen (NASA JSC) presented ROS use in NASA at Johnson space centre

Technology discussions on “ROS 2.0 Challenges” with Tully Foote (Open Robotics) and “ROS-Industrial Road Mapping” with Paul Evans (SwRI) allowed participants to highlight current industrial requirements and gaps in order for the consortium to distinguish key areas of focus.

Products showcasing ROS-Industrial use by MiR ApS, Blue WorkForce, and PPM AS were on display.

Various ROS-Industrial packages such as Scan-N-Plan,, PackML, motion planning, advanced 2Dvision, and 3D-point cloud sensor processing were demonstrated on robots by ABB, Fanuc industrial, UR10, Kuka, and Sawyer collaborative robots.

To learn more about the ROS-I Asia Pacific Consortium please visit the Join Now page.

Overall presentation videos will be uploaded shortly.

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Day 1 - 25th May 2017

9:30am ROS Industrial Asia Pacific Consortium
Min Ling Chan, ROS-I AP Consortium Slides

10:00am ROS-I Consortium Americas Update - highlighting 2016 accomplishments and future direction
Paul Evans, SwRI Slides

10:50am Looking forward to ROS2
Tully Foote, Open Robotics Slides

11:20am An Innovative Robotics Platform for Simplifying and Accelerating Deployments in the Food Industry
Hai Chang, Blue Workforce Robotics (Asia Pacific) Slides

11:50am Automatic transportation of carts using a Hook
Niels Jacobsen, Mobile Industrial Robots Slides

12:20pm Lunch + Workshop Group Photo + Exhibition and Demonstrations

2:30 pm National Robotics Strategy for Singapore
Rayner Ng, NRPO Slides

2:45pm Multi-platform Digital Twins for Cobots
Dr. Steve Kerrison, ARTC Slides

3:00pm Coffee Break

3:30pm Singapore’s Industrial Robotics Program
Dr. Marcello Ang, NUS Slides

4:00pm ROS Technical Roadmapping Breakout Sessions
1) Challenges with ROS
Facilitators: Tully Foote (OR), Min Ling Chan (ARTC)
2) ROS-Industrial Roadmap and focus points
Facilitators Paul Evans (SwRI), Nicholas Yeo (ARTC)

5:00pm Wrap up
Nicholas Yeo, ARTC

6:00pm Networking Dinner at Spruce Restaurant

Day 2 - 26th May 2017

9:00am ROS-Industrial: Strength in numbers for automation
Dr. Mirko Bordignon, Fraunhofer IPA Slides

9:30am ROS and NASA
Dr. Kimberly Hambuchen, NASA Johnson Space Centre Slides

10:00am Development of Warehouse Robots for Efficient Flow of Various Materials
Dr. Toshio Moriya, Hitachi

10:30am Coffee Break

10:50am The power of the GUI in robot programming and –operation
Trygve Thomessen and Laszlo Nagy, PPM AS Slides

11:20am ROS for Mobile Robotics
Asadollah Norouzi, Singapore Polytechnic Slides

11:50am Visual Marker-Guided Mobile Robot Solution for Automated Item Picking in a Warehouse
Reeve Chong, NTU Slides

12:20pm Lunch
1:00pm Exhibition / Demonstration
2:00pm Lightning Talks

2:30pm Virtual Fort Knox - an open cloud platform for smart manufacturing
Christian Henkel, Fraunhofer IPA Slides