Standardizing Robot Operating Systems

Just because they use the same software does not mean they will 'get along'.   Still the use of software that can communicate will make them easier to update and exchange information.  

As Robots Fill the Workplace, They Must Learn to Get Along  By Wired, February 12, 2021

Singapore's Changi General Hospital is using software from Open Robotics to avoid standoffs among its robots in hallways or outside elevators.

The hospital's approximately 50 robots are from eight manufacturers, and the software enables robots from different manufacturers to communicate and negotiate safe passage around each other.  Open Robotics maintains the Robot Operating System (ROS) open-source software, but the software being used by Changi allows communication among robots not based on ROS.

The company hopes for more widespread adoption of such free, easily modified software to facilitate greater interoperability of workplace robots.

ABI Research's Rian Whitton said companies have been able to develop mobile robots more quickly thanks to ROS, and interoperability could accelerate through an open source platform.

From Wired  ... 

Building ROS Robotics Applications

ROS Pointed out to me as instructive  .... 

Building Robotics Applications Using ROS and NVIDIA Isaac SDK

By Sameer Tangade and Cenk Oguz Saglam | November 11, 2020  Tags: Isaac SDK, Isaac Sim, Robotics, ROS, Simulation

The Robot Operating System (ROS) offers many software libraries and tools to help build robot applications, including framework, algorithms, sensors, and robot platforms. It is extremely popular with roboticists and researchers everywhere. A continuous influx of packages and libraries from the ecosystem makes it easy to get started on robotics projects.

Figure 1. Using the ROS bridge to connect the Isaac and ROS software stacks. ... 

NVIDIA Isaac SDK is an open robotics platform to accelerate the development and deployment of AI-powered robots. Isaac SDK brings a SW framework, Isaac Engine, for efficient processing on NVIDIA Jetson platforms as well as GPUs. It also includes AI and GPU-accelerated algorithms, Isaac GEMS, as well as an integration to Isaac Sim for NVIDIA RTX-powered photo-real simulation. These capabilities can be used in a ROS-based application stack using the Isaac SDK ROS bridge (Figure 1). This allows developers and researchers to leverage both platforms for building robotics applications.

In this post, we show you how to use the ROS bridge to take an image from a camera in ROS format and use it with an Isaac GEM (Superpixel). Using examples, we also look at connecting Isaac GEMs and Isaac Sim with a ROS application stack as well as modules using the Isaac ROS bridge. Finally, we explain how to write a message converter (ROS bridge) for ROS to Isaac or Isaac to ROS scenarios.  ... '