Robot Operating System

Robot Operating System (ROS) is software framework, which makes building robots easier and more enjoyable. ROS includes everything necessary, from drivers to high level algorithm. For example it allows to view robot movement as a 3D model. Robot can be controlled through a simple graphic interface.

ROS is open source. The main goal of ROS is to support code sharing and collaboration in robotics research and development. One ROS system consists of several independent nodes that communicate with other nodes using the publish / subscribe logic.

For example, a mobile robot may include a camera node and a video processing node. The camera node publishes the camera image to a specific topic, such as /camera/image. To view the image, another computer runs an image display node that receives the image from the same theme /camera/image. Communication goes through ROS.