In traditional robot behavior programming, the edit-compile-simulate-deploy-run cycle creates a large mental disconnect between program creation and eventual robot behavior. This significantly slows down behavior development because there is no immediate mental connection between the program and the resulting behavior. With live programming the development cycle is made extremely tight, realizing such an immediate connection. In our work on programming of ROS robots in a more dynamic fashion through PhaROS, we have experimented with the use of the Live Robot Programming language. This has given rise to a number of requirements for such live programming of robots. In this text we introduce these requirements and illustrate them using an example robot behavior.

This presentation has been given at the DSL Rob Workshop held as part of the SIMPAR 2014 conference (Bergamo, Italy).

Slides of my presentation given at ESUG 2014 conference are available online (see below). It’s about Robot software development using the Pharo dynamic language. It includes a quick overview of PhaROS our bridge to the ROS, as well as BoTest our framework for TDD for robotics applications. The video is also available on Youtube (see below) thanks to ESUG student volunteers. Note it is in two parts.

For the 2014 edition of the CAR workshop (Control Architectures for Robots) we’re glad to have Dr. Florian Röhrbein as our invited speaker. His talk will be entitled: ”The Human Brain Project and its Neurorobotics Platform“. You’ll find below the abstract of this talk as well as a short bio of Dr. Röhrbein.

ABSTRACT

The HBP is one of two European Flagship projects dedicated to long-term basic research with a planned funding of 1 billion € over 10 years. The ultimate goal is to gain profound insights into brain functions, develop new treatments for brain diseases and build entirely new computing technologies. HBP has three research areas – Neuroscience, Medicine and Future Computing – and will develop six ICT platforms, dedicated to Neuro¬informatics, Brain Simulation, High Performance Computing, Medical Informatics, Neuromorphic Computing and Neurorobotics. HBP is completely open, i.e., these platforms will be made available to all interested research communities worldwide, enabling them to profit from each other. Our vision is that interactive supercomputing, driven by the needs of brain simulation, will impact many industries. Devices and systems, modelled after the brain, are to overcome current limits on the energy-efficiency, reliability and programmability, clearing the road for systems with brain-like intelligence. The Neurorobotics Platform will offer scientists and technology developers a software and hardware infrastructure allowing them to connect pre-validated brain models to detailed simulations of robot bodies and environments and to use the resulting neurorobotic systems in silico experiments and technology development. In this talk, I will give an overview of the HBP, outline the goals of the Neurorobotics subproject, and sketch the work which is planned for the next two years.

BIO

Dr. Florian Röhrbein is a senior lecturer at the research group “Robotics and Embedded Systems” in TUM’s Informatics Department. He is managing director of the Neurorobotics subproject of the Human Brain Project flagship. He has international work experience in various projects on brain-inspired cognitive systems. Research stays include the MacKay Institute of Communication and Neuroscience (UK), the HONDA Research Institute Europe (Germany) and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (New York). He received his Diploma and PhD from TU München and the venia legendi for computer science from Universität Bremen. Prior to his involvement in the Human Brain Project, he was member of the executive committee of the ECHORD project and was responsible for the structured dialogue between industry and academia in European robotics.

Here are videos of a students’ project of a tracker robot that relies on an external kinect sensor driven through ROS. The kinect observes the whole scene. A PhaROS-based node controls the robot to track a ball based on the the kinect output. When no ball is detected, the robot goes back to a home position.


Ball Following Behavior


Go Home Behavior


Tracker Camera View

We have already reported about a team of our students competing for the 2014 edition of the Eurobot contest (french chapter). The project where they have been using PhaROS is now over. Below the last videos. Hopefully a new team will be continue the effort next year and build up on what has been done so far.


IronMines Bot in the lab scoring 4 balls and 1 triangle


IronMines Bot in the lab scoring 1 ball and 2 triangles


IronMines during the competition

Cincom is looking for an experienced Smalltalker, a SOFTWARE ENGINEER.
Our new colleague shall strengthen the development team for our document output product Cincom ChannelStream (developed in Smalltalk).

Applications are accepted until the position is filled.
· English: http://documentoutput.cincom.com/software-engineer-cincom-channelstream/
· French: http://documentoutput.cincom.fr/2014/06/opportunite-software-engineer-cincom-channelstream/

Regards
Yvonne

********************************************
Yvonne Schickel
Marketing Manager Cincom ChannelStream
Cincom Systems GmbH & Co. oHG
Tel.: +49 6196 9003-0
E-Mail: yschickel@cincom.com

Le programme de l’édition 2014 aux Journées Nationales de Robotique Humanoïde et Architecture de Contrôle en Robotique (JNRH-CAR) est désormais disponible. Cette année les journées se tiendront à Paris à la cité internationale les 23 et 24 juin.

Les inscriptions en ligne sonts ouvertes. Le prix comprend :

  • L’accès à la conférence
  • Le programme et les résumés des interventions
  • Les pauses café des 23 & 24 Juin 2014
  • Les déjeuners des 23 & 24 Juin 2014
  • Le diner du 23 Juin 2014

 

The Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Douai (Mines Douai ) is a French engineering school, member of the Institut Mines‐Télécom. Institut Mines‐Télécom is composed of 13 engineering schools with nearly 12,000 students, including 1,700 graduate students , and a research contract turnover of € 84 million. Mines Douai is organized into teaching and research departments in various fields of engineering science (for more details, see the website of the school: http://www2.mines‐douai.fr/en). Mines Douai would like to strengthen the Computer Science team by hiring a permanent assistant professor.

Teaching activities :

‐ Provide specialized teaching in his or her field of competence, in particular those related to IT or IA,

‐ Get involved in various educational support activities (supervision of students, creation of new educational resources, admission …).

Research and technology transfer activities :

‐ Conduct research and supervise PhD students and postdocs in: software engineering for robotics or multi-robots systems and robotics fleets coordination (more on http://car.mines-douai.fr)

‐ Develop collaboration with the other members of the department,

‐ Participate to regional, national and international activities (conference organization, workshop, etc.) of his/her field research,

‐ Collaborate with industrial partners and participate in technology transfer,

‐ Participate in the organization of scientific events.

Qualifications required
The position would suit an applicant who holds a PhD in the field of computer science, and who is interested in teaching and research‐oriented industrial applications. A post‐ doctoral experience would be appreciated. The ideal candidate must hold a specialized doctorate degree with skills in software engineering, autonomous systems, multi‐agent systems.
He/She should be a good team player and communicator, and have demonstrated international orientation. He/She should have the necessary linguistic and cultural skills to develop international cooperation in both research and teaching.

The candidate must have proven experience setting up and managing research projects. He or she should also
provide references showing an ability to teach and advise students. ’.

How to apply :
The position is open only to citizens of an EU member country. The application form is available upon request from : Danièle CATOUILLARD (Phone : +33 (0)3.27.71.25.36 ‐ daniele.catouillard@mines‐douai.fr ) Ecole des Mines de Douai Human Resources Department 941 Charles Street Bourseul ‐ CS 10838 59508 Douai Cedex ‐ France

Closing date for applications: 23 June 2014

Contact person
Professor Stephane LECOEUCHE ‐ Deputy Head of Department of Computer Science and Automatic Control, Director of the Research Unit IA Tel: +33 (0)3.27.71.24.45 Mail: stephane.lecoeuche@mines‐douai.fr

Xuan Sang Le is a PhD student who has joined our team mid-february. His work is co-supervized by Ecole des Mines and ENSTA is about speed optimization of Smalltalk robotic software by means of FPGAs. The first step is to develop an application fully in Smalltalk and our PhaROS Robotics framework that will serve as a reference for our metrics. The app we have chosen is a simple tracker robot that follows an object of a particular color. Beside being fun, the result shown by the video below is interesting. As we have initially expected we can’t pretend to be real-time. Still, Pharo is capable of fetching an image through wifi, process it and discover the position of the object 650 milliseconds. And this is with non-optimized code. Figures are likely to be better after optimization.