Five MSR projects featured in Robot Operating System video

For 10 years now, the Robot Operating System (ROS) has been used to write robot software. It is a system that is frequently used by students in the Master of Science in Robotics program at Northwestern Engineering. 

To celebrate the 10-year anniversary, Open Robotics recently produced a montage video of various projects from around the world using the software. Included in the short video are highlights from five different projects created within the MSR program.

Learn more about each of the five projects below:

0:18: Kinodynamic Planning for Throwing/Catching using Baxter

The student involved with this project developed a software pipeline that made it possible to throw a ball from one of Baxter’s hands to the other. To do that, the student needed to determine an optimal throwing state, then kinodynamically plan how to get from the current state to the optimal state, and then build a minimum acceleration trajectory to follow the plan.

0:31: Baxter-Mounted Jamming Gripper 

This project focused on designing, developing and ultimately prototyping a more versatile gripper that would be compatible with Rethink Robotics’ Baxter Robot.

0:43: Skeleton Tracking and IK Based Teleoperation of a 14 DoF Dual Arm Manipulator 

The purpose of this project was to make it possible for a human user to remotely — and intuitively — operate the arms of a human-like robot. The hope was to combine the advanced human brain with the strong and precise appendages of the robot to improve a variety of situations and professions, such remote bomb disposal, complex manipulation tasks in outer space or telesurgery.

1:55: Jackal Robot Autonomous Navigation 

The student involved with this project performed a custom setup and configuration of the ROS Navigation Stack for the MSR program’s unmanned ground vehicle, the Clearpath Jackal Robot.

1:59: MYHOG Racer

MYHOG stands for Myo Controlled Hemispherical Omni-directional Gimballed. This racer uses one hemisphere as a drive force. With the hemisphere constantly being spun and making contact with the ground, the gimbal’s tilt makes it possible for the racer to drive in any direction. The Myo is an armband worn just below the elbow of the human driver. It uses a combination of EMG, IMU, and accelerometer signals to achieve machine trained gesture recognition that allows the driver to control the speed and direction of the MYHOG.