EmbVerse - Robot Operating System : How to Learn and Contribute

Robot Operating System

> How to

Learn and Contribute

Date : June 23, 2023

Edited : August 14, 2023

Hey, this is Shaunak !

During the Indian Monsoon of the year 2018, as a part of my job, I was appointed a task to build a Teleoperated Robot with movement’s real time remote visual tracking using Robot Operating System (ROS). Having been an explorer of new technologies, I had heard about ROS only, but my colleague trusted me and gave me some time to think upon the design of robot, software resources required and most important, whether I would be able to grasp the concept, learn the tools, programming environment, code and integrate them with hardware. Here I am sharing my approach to the project. I am not going to share the details of this project's development as it was a confidential work.

I am an old school learner who, in spite of living in the era of search engines which can redirect us to the answers that we look for very fast, decided to find some good books on ROS to study first because I believe that when any technical book is written, it always provides the best possible knowledge due to its author's success in the experiments that he has conducted for making sure whatever content that he writes remains true to the best of his knowledge and expertise. The text books and reference books that I used to study during my Engineering studies taught me this because the knowledge that they provided me stands true till date. And what if any mistake is found in the book? It is reported to the author who understands and corrects it and that's how books get updated by getting published as new editions. Being a lover of books (More technical and less non-technical), I have a cupboard of books.

Coming back to ROS, I was looking to find books that could teach me ROS the simplest way possible as I did not have any background to start with. Search engines came to rescue me and I found an author Lentin Joseph ! I started downloading his books on ROS from using Search Engines, deciding the hardware for the robot and studying different versions of ROS. Once I got familiar with the basics, I built the hardware and started programming. As ROS was not only new for me, but it was new for the many other developers also at that time, I started facing so many errors and issues. At first, I contacted Lentin Joseph seeking for his help. He started giving me solutions, but later, I realized I should not bother him. In the era of internet, engineering problems are discussed in the subject relevant communities and as ROS is an open-source platform, I tried to find its community for questions and answers and found ROS Answers ! With the help of the community, the books and my previous experience in Robotics, I managed to accomplish the project within time. By the way, the beauty of such communities is that you can contribute by asking questions as well because if your question is answered and the problem is solved, it can help some other person who is looking for an answer to similar question like yours. And if you find yourself as an individual who is able to answer someone's question, please answer and contribute. Every current expert was once a person with questions only !

ROS Answers is a wonderful community built of Genuine Experts. At EmbVerse, I wish to build some open-source Robot prototypes based on ROS to contribute and thus give back to one of my favourite communities. Below are some links of ROS Answers to some of the questions/issues that I faced during the development of the project. Click/Tap on them for details of discussion done :

Important Information

The ROS Answers has recently made read-only. Please transition to use Robotics Stack Exchange

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