Subject:
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Microsoft Robotics Studio
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:59:48 GMT
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Reply-To:
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<DICKSWAN@SBCGLOBAL.spamlessNET>
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Viewed:
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3568 times
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Microsoft recently announced incremental evolution of their earlier
"Robotics Studio" platform. See
www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jun06/06-20MSRoboticsStudioPR.msp
x. Soren Lund of Lego is quoted in the press release.
It appears to me that this initiative is not really applicable to small
Mindstorms type robots. It seems very much oriented to large industrial
grade applications on relatively expensive robotics platforms. This is
explained in more detail in the remainder of this post.
This announcement appears to be an evolution of the same system that was
announced earlier. There were some earlier emails on this containing a
description of some of the operational problems on a RCX. If you read
http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/learn/setuphdwr/default.aspx you can
see many of the problems that they have with the RCX. Look at the
sections titled:
• Communications latency
• Losing commands
• Setting the sensor type
• Queued commands may still run
The new piece in this announcement is that Microsoft now has the
solution running on the NXT.
Not Autonomous Operation:
=========================
From the press release: "Microsoft showed working Microsoft Robotics
Studio demos from fischertechnik, LEGO Group, MobileRobots Inc.,
Parallax Inc. and Phidgets Inc." I'm sure these were all systems with
intelligence/control residing in a Windows PC with the robots themselves
simply limited to reporting sensor values and acting on motor control
commands.
Microsoft claims that the Robotics Studio allows for autonomous robot
operation. "Both remote (PC-based) and autonomous (robot-based)
execution scenarios can be developed using a selection of programming
languages, including those in Microsoft Visual Studio® and Microsoft
Visual Studio Express languages (Visual C#® and Visual Basic® .NET),
JScript® and Microsoft IronPython 1.0 Beta 1, and third-party languages
that conform to its services-based architecture." It appears what
Microsoft means is that you can program autonomous robots as long as the
robots are able to run a .NET enabled Microsoft OS!
If you look at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/learn/setuphdwr/default.aspx you can
see that all of the smaller platforms (RCX, NXT, FischerTechnic) all
rely on the standard product firmware with intelligence provided from a
PC connected via IR, Bluetooth or RF wireless to the platforms.
I also stumbled across the following comment from one of the Microsoft
developers in the Microsoft hosted discussion group at
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=mi
crosoft.public.msroboticsstudio&cat=en_US_8C6248FF-7269-A8D9-32F8-30501C
8289A0&lang=en&cr=US. [Check the response from Henrik of Microsoft in
the post titled "Absolute Horror") "The other thing to clarify is that
we have no intention of running our bits on MCSs in general. As part of
our tutorials you will see how we can talk to a number of existing
robots just fine through whatever mechanism they use." [I presume "out
bits" means "our code"]. This seems pretty clear that the Microsoft
Robotics Studio will not generate on-board run-time code for NXT, RCX,
etc unless the robotics platform is running a Microsoft .NET operating
environment.
The video at http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=206574 (about
23 to 25 minutes in) shows a NXT demo with PC control via Bluetooth.
Microsoft states that they've implemented a common "contract" between
the RCX, NXT and FischerTechnic (and others) that allows a single common
PC based service implementation to be independent of PC platform. The
two examples on the video are a joystick control to move a NXT robot and
a PC service to drive a robot forward and then turn in a circle. This is
surely a good capability but certainly not terribly radical or even new;
for example, recall the Logo system of Turtle graphics for common
commands for low-level I/O and positioning control.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Microsoft Robotics Studio
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| (...) I just got back from Robobusiness, where I spoke on OMG Robotics Standards (URL) I attended four hours worth of sessions on the MS Robotics Studio. I was prepared to pooh-pooh it as just another over-hyped lukewarm effort that MS would try to (...) (18 years ago, 23-Jun-06, to lugnet.robotics)
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