ROS is the Robotic Operating System. It’s been used by thousands of developers to prototype and create a robotic application. ROS can be found on robotics in warehouses, self-driving car companies, and on the International Space Station. Louise Poubel is an engineer working with Open Robotics. Today on the podcast, she talks about what it takes to develop software that moves in physical space, including the Sense, Think, Act Cycle, the developer experience, and architecture of ROS.

Why listen to this podcast:

- Writing code for robot development, you use the Sense, Think, Act Cycle.

- ROS is an SDK for robotics. It provides a communication layer that enables data to flow between nodes that handle sensors, logic, and actuation.

- ROS has two versions and has been around for twelve years. ROS 1 was entirely implemented in C. ROS 2 offers is a common C layer with implementations in many different languages, including Java, JavaScript, and Rust.

- Released on a six-month cadence, Dashing was the latest release (May 2019). Previous releases were supported for one year, Dashing is the first LTS and will be supported for two years.

- ROS 2 builds on top of the standard Data Distribution Service (DDS) that you find in mission-critical systems like nuclear power and airplanes.

- Simulation is an important step in robotics. It allows you to prototype a system before deploying to a physical system.

- Rviz is a three-dimensional visualizer used to visualize robots, the environments they work in, and sensor data. It is a highly configurable tool, with many different types of visualizations and plugins. It allows you to put together all your data in one place and see it.

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