Stéphane Avril
Expleo Group (France)
Jul 29, 2023
Period
- 2019
Testimonial
I utilized ROS for developing an autonomous mobile robot with environmental perception and navigation capabilities.
What I like : The most helpful aspect of this product is its user-friendly interface and intuitive design. The upsides of using this product include increased productivity, streamlined workflows, and simplified data management.
What I don't like : its steep learning curve, especially for users with limited technical expertise. The initial setup and configuration may require some time and effort to fully grasp.
Michele Galullo
Leonardo
May 21, 2023
Period
- 2018
Title
I implemented the Reverse priority Task algorithm on real robot. The software infrastructure of the robot was built entirely with ROS. With its modularity, it allows me to modify and add more features.
Pro
Good documentation. A lot of examples. Modularity. Flexibility. It is open source tool.
Con
The use of "catkin-make" infrastructure to build the code. It is not a real-time "operative system".
Robot
AlterEgo wheeled robot.
Stefano Maugeri
Intecs
May 6, 2023
Period
- 2022
Title
ROS basically allows communication between software modules, simplifying it.
The strength of ROS is that it offers many ready-made software modules, so you can insert your project as a new software module together with the software modules provided by ROS.
I used ROS to test the control algorithms of a robotic manipulator.
I implemented my module, and then I made it communicate with the already working ROS modules, which also provided for the simulation of my robot itself (thanks to the RViz module).
Pro
There are many guides on the official site.
Since ROS is extremely widespread, it is easy to find guides even on unofficial but still reliable sites.
The community behind ROS has developed many algorithms, some even very complex, and made them available to users for free.
Among the many modules available, there are also complex tools for simulating robots (for example GAZEBO) or visualizing robots or even collecting large amounts of data from real robots.
ROS is certainly a very powerful tool in the robotics field.
Con
ROS is compatible mainly with Linux, but only with some distros and some specific versions.
To use ROS you are therefore forced to use certain Linux distros as your operating system.
Using ROS for not particularly complex projects can be difficult, as ROS requires some familiarity with Linux.
I had particular difficulty using ROS in multithreaded environments.
Unfortunately, ROS cannot be used in REAL TIME environments
Robot
kuka LBR iiwa
Sofia Faraci
Università di Pisa
Jan 31, 2023
Period
- 2022
Title
I used ROS for two different projects. The first time to implement a force estimation algorithm for a wheeled humanoid robot and later to implement a Teaching by Demonstration learning system applied to a manipulator robot. I u
Pro
It's open-source. Its documentation is exhaustive, if followed well it allows you to have a good knowledge of every aspect of ROS. There are a lot of user-made tools that make it easier to use. It can easily be integrated into many robots. The majority of the robots already has a ROS-compatible package.
Con
Debugging can result hard if a specific user-made tool is not used. The previous distros can not be used on Windows. Distros are too dependent on the Linux version, I had to
Robot
Franka Emika Panda manipulator robot and AlterEgo wheeled humanoid robot.
Antonio Manuele
Università di Pisa
Jan 28, 2023
Period
- 2021
Title
I used it for several applications and projects. First of all I simulated a bipedal walking robot using the Gazebo environment. I used it during my master thesis work to simulated the dynamic behaviour of a car model, driven by a Model Predictive Control. I also used it to control the Franka Emika Panda
Pro
Both python and C++ languages can be used to program. There are MATLAB packages to communicate with ROS. It is widely used and soon it will be a standard.
Con
Sometimes it can crash. It is not a real-time operating system.
Robot
Franka Emika Panda. I also use it with Inteel RealSense D455.
Francesco Lombardi
New grad
Jan 25, 2023
Period
- 2021
Title
I used ROS in a project that concerned the design, simulation and realization of a dynamic picking
tasks with a Franka Emika Panda manipulator able to recognize a moving object with a camera.
The whole system that includes Simulink, camera, end-effector as well as
Franka Emika Panda robot was integrated using ROS.
Pro
It is an open source software. Being the reference software for robotics applications, it has a large users community and adequate documentation is available. It has a wide range of applications and and it is able to communicate with both different types of robots and different software such as Python, C++, Matlab/Simulink.
Con
From my short experience with it, I did not find any particular defects. It is better suited for use on Ubuntu than on Windows.
Robot
Franka Emika Panda
Mariangela Menolotto
Intecs Solutions
Jan 12, 2023
Period
- 2021
Title
I used ROS to simulate the behaviour of a mobile robot over Gazebo. The robot was a humanoid robot over a unicycle and the goal of the simulation was to test a control law to make the robot go up and down variable slopes without losing stability. The inputs to the system were the torques to be applied to the motors attached to the wheels, while the available sensors were an IMU and two encoders.
Pro
It is fairly easy to use, open source and very useful. It opens a wide range of applications.
Con
I did not use this tool for a very long time, but I couldn't find any downside of ROS.
Robot
Alter-Ego, a humanoid mobile robot developed by Centro Piaggio at Università di Pisa, Italy.
Verified user
Dec 7, 2022
Period
- 2022
Title
Autonomous Delivery Robot. Used ROS in calibration and configuration of the robot sensors(LiDAR and camera)and also for mapping. The implementation was a fast process and the map developed was accurate and precise.
Pro
1. Open Source
2. Good Community
3. Light-weight
4. Packages for nearly all use cases.
Con
1. Only on some Linux distros.
Apart from that not many cons.
Robot
Terminus Delivery Robot
Mohan Raj Nadarajan
SR Privtae Limited
Nov 26, 2022
Period
- 2021
Title
I wanted to create a simulator for the existing robot, so that I can use the physic engine to get real time simulation of robot. I have created the Unified robot description of the robot which I wanted to duplicate and then deployed it on the ROS platform. To create the URDF format of robot, there are extensions available in the Solidworks or other 3D CAD softwares. The physic engine will be used by all developers for the development of real time sofware. This will not only help the developers but also support customers to validate the field devices before hand in an integrated environment.
Pro
The most interestig part is that this is not just a software, it is a middleware with multiple functions and is able to perform all types of operations required for a real time software field device replication. This supports domain specific language. So the domain specific compoenents can be created before hand and is used to integrate between different components. The most intergrate part is Quality of Service (QoS) which can be used to qualify the components and their integartion. This helps to ensure the compatibility between multiple components and produce an abstract model beforehand.
Con
Robot Operating System is over structed. To run a simple sketch, it requires lot of efforts to create multiple ROS Nodes and try to integrate them with ROS topics. It's very useful for complex systems, but for simple systems, it is very complicated. It requires efforts to learn the architecture and all commands for troubleshooting. It would be great if there is a virtual assistant just like text editor. But everything is to done by developer. A fresher needs to spend lot of effort to launch a simple script and it's time consuming. There are many options which are fully utilized by a typical ROS engineer. So the user perspetive should be considered.
Robot
Kawasaki Robot. NTS 10
Stefano Aldini
University of Technology Sydney
Nov 13, 2022
Period
- 2021
Title
I used ROS to implement software for multiple robots and applications, in the industry and in academia. From firmware to high-level software, this open-source meta-operating system has the libraries and packages to help software development for most robot applications.
Pro
Thanks to the massive community behind ROS and how widely used this system is, there are plenty of developed and maintained packages to support new software development. The tutorials for beginners are also easy to follow. Moreover, it is straightforward to integrate drivers or external libraries with ROS.
Con
I cannot think of any cons.
Robot
Universal Robots and Comau. I also used ROS to work with some sensors, such as RealSense cameras and Leap Motion sensors.
Sanket Palchaudhary
SVIT Vasad
Nov 10, 2022
Period
- 2021
Title
Implemented a pick and place robot using a Techman TMR700 robot. The robot was programmed to pick objects from Marker 1 and place it on Marker 2 within certain range of error. Created various different launch packages and scripts to initiate and launch various different nodes together using ROS Kinetic, then Melodic and Noetic.
Pro
The ease of use and interconnectivity available and the huge number of pre-created packages which can be used for a wide variety of functions. The humongous library of documentation and support available in the ROS community which guides a beginner throughout their journey of implementing their first project.
Con
Ideal to use only on Ubuntu, although few distros are now available for windows but Ubuntu still produces the best results.
Robot
Techman TMR700
Marzan Alam
Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology
Nov 8, 2022
Period
- selectYear
- 2022
Title
Medical Robot for reducing interaction between Patients and Doctor
Pro
Package availability
Modularity
Con
No Con
Robot
Custom made mobile robot
Thuvaraga Krishnarajah
Roshai Pvt Ltd
Nov 5, 2022
Period
- 2022
Title
Home assistant robot - ros melodic
Agriculture vehicle prototype - ROS melodic
Autonomous vehicle - Ros2 humble
Teaching and learning purposes - ROS neotic and ROS2 foxy
Pro
Hardware and software integration is easy
We can easily build hardware protocol packages by creating c and c++ executables
Real time website communication is possible using ROS Websocket and JavaScript bundle
We can easily use deep learning frameworks like Tensorflow and Tensorrt in ROS nodes
Ros is really helpful at allocating memory for multiple processes or nodes
Ros2 tracing is really helpful to analysis
Con
Ros2 humble is crashing while continuously testing a system.
We have to build the packages again or reboot the system To resolve the issues.
ROS Websocket bridge is unable to handle multiple client issues in ROS melodic while publish ROS topic from a reactjs website. Rosauth package didn’t have proper documentation about user authentication. I didn’t face this issues in ROS2.
In ROS2 humble, ‘get_node_names’ didn’t give all the running nodes. It missed some running nodes. But in system monitors we can see all the running nodes. ‘ps -ef’ command gave all the running nodes. And also python library ‘subprocess’ gave all the running nodes.
In ROS2 humble, while we are running multiple process, if it didn’t get memory to run a node, it’s not giving any warnings or alerts. It simply stop executing that node.
Rclnodejs library is not maintained properly. It’s crashing while npm installation itself.
ROS serial is not a good choice for continuous usage. We feel in serial communication sending data in bytes is reliable. In ROS serial some times we missed data.
In ROS2 humble, ‘ros2 topic list’ didn’t show any running topics in terminal. But rqt_graph is showing all the running topics and nodes
Hardware protocol libraries like libmodbus are only available for old versions like ROS melodic. Not for ROS2
Robot
Car used is Jeep Compass. Robot used was a startup product
Loqmane HASSANE
Stäubli
Oct 28, 2022
Period
- 2018
Title
I used ROS within the framework of the SMART UHA project which precisely made it possible to implement and merge the different sensor data of the robot in order to obtain in particular clouds of points corresponding to the environment of the robot to allow it to move forward without encountering obstacles. At first I established the modeling of the robot under ROS (with the different benchmarks), then I proceeded to add its sensors.
Pro
First, I quickly found that ROS packages exist for just about everything. What is good is that ROS does not depend on a single programming language, we can very easily communicate between a Python node and a C++ node. It is also very interesting to be able to control several robots with ROS, because indeed it can work in multi-master mode (each robot has its own independent ROS system). And finally, ROS is lightweight, the ROS codebase doesn't take up much space and resources. You can install the base and start a project in just a few minutes.
Con
Since I really admire ROS, I don't have many bad points to write down. However it is true that compared to microcontrollers, ROS uses much more power and space, and has no guarantee of real-time control.
In addition, it can also be complicated for a beginner with no experience in ROS to get started.
Robot
SMART UHA Robot
Abhishek Jain
USICT
Oct 28, 2022
Period
- 2022
Title
This product/tech stack helped me perform the simulation of the project for which the hardware was costly. It helped me to work and understand the PX4 drone stack by simualting the real world scenarios and models without investing much.
Pro
It is free of cost, open source. It helps to test the approach in simulation before hardware implementation. It comes with proper documentation. Easy to understand.
Con
Requires high configuration laptop or device. Can support only linux (ubentu) OS.
Robot
PX4 drone (simulation)
Dhanush G
Western Digital
Aug 22, 2022
Period
- 2022
- 2021
- 2020
Title
Low cost implementation of Autonomous mobile robot using ROS with integrated LiDAR and camera.
Pro
The ROS community is really huge and very helpful when it comes to debugging and fixing errors. Since it's an open source software, anyone can use it and anyone can contribute, that makes it easier to implement complex systems.
Con
Developers keep shifting ROS distros every few years, although it has many advantages it takes time for developers to heavily contribute to a new distro after its launch and that makes it harder for newbies to learn ROS using the new distro.
Robot
Custom robot inspired by turtlebor3 waffle.