WEBVTT 00:00.200 --> 00:07.040 Robotics is concerned with the study of those machines that can replace human beings in the execution 00:07.040 --> 00:07.880 of a task. 00:07.910 --> 00:13.550 As regards both physical activity and decision making from robotics. 00:13.580 --> 00:14.210 Sciavicco. 00:14.210 --> 00:14.930 Cigliano. 00:14.960 --> 00:15.590 Villani. 00:16.950 --> 00:22.590 According to this definition of robotics, provided in one of the most famous book about robotics, 00:22.590 --> 00:30.360 it is evident how multidisciplinary this subject is, whose purpose is to design and develop intelligent 00:30.360 --> 00:35.310 systems that can substitute human beings in the execution of their tasks. 00:35.970 --> 00:40.860 According to this definition, the robotics has two main characteristics. 00:41.250 --> 00:48.210 Physical activity, namely the capability of the robot to execute an action that modifies the status 00:48.210 --> 00:49.830 of the surrounding environment. 00:49.950 --> 00:56.910 And this might mean to move some shelves, for example, in a warehouse or to manipulate objects for 00:56.910 --> 00:58.380 the packaging and so on. 00:59.000 --> 01:05.930 This aspect is affected by the mechanic and the electronic of the robot that determines, for example, 01:05.930 --> 01:10.430 the maximum speed and the maximum load that the robot can handle. 01:11.250 --> 01:19.470 Decision making instead is the capability of the robot to adapt its behavior to the surrounding environment. 01:19.500 --> 01:26.580 For instance, avoiding obstacles during the autonomous navigation or deciding which object to grasp 01:26.580 --> 01:27.870 from a basket. 01:28.470 --> 01:34.680 In this case, the software is important for encoding the intelligent behaviors and the logic of the 01:34.680 --> 01:35.340 robot. 01:36.600 --> 01:44.220 It is clear that the development of a robot from scratch is a considerably hard task, since not only 01:44.220 --> 01:51.810 the knowledge of many subjects such as electronics, mechanics, networks and computer science are needed, 01:52.020 --> 01:58.320 but also if we focus just on one of these, as we do in this course, which is software development, 01:58.350 --> 02:04.800 the implementation from scratch of all the software modules is a very complex and long process. 02:05.430 --> 02:11.910 Luckily, though, over the last decade, universities and innovative companies have contributed to 02:11.910 --> 02:18.870 the development of modules and functionalities that allows robots to navigate autonomously while avoiding 02:18.900 --> 02:23.520 obstacles or to grasp objects or to detect people and so on. 02:24.200 --> 02:30.800 Initially each of these module was developed with its own interface, and these made each module basically 02:30.800 --> 02:36.590 incompatible with all the others that a different institution, for example, with a different interface 02:36.590 --> 02:38.630 and communication protocol developed. 02:39.620 --> 02:45.830 This incompatibility very often required reinventing the wheel in order to make those modules interact 02:45.830 --> 02:50.780 with each other, or even in some cases, to entirely redevelop a module. 02:51.550 --> 02:58.930 The Ross project starts with the aim of making all these modules that are developed by different institutions 02:58.930 --> 03:06.610 compatible with each other and leave the research centre finally free to focus only on the most innovative 03:06.610 --> 03:08.980 projects in the field of robotics. 03:09.720 --> 03:16.710 Furthermore, this also allows all of those who want to create a robot to reuse a lot of functionalities 03:16.710 --> 03:24.570 that are already implemented and widely tested by a community of roboticists and developers that use 03:24.570 --> 03:27.690 and optimize the same software on a daily basis. 03:28.510 --> 03:29.050 This way. 03:29.050 --> 03:34.420 You don't need to know all the technical details of the implementation of the modules, but you can 03:34.420 --> 03:37.420 directly use and enjoy the application. 03:38.400 --> 03:46.230 In 2007, Willow Garage was founded with the aim of exploring and doing research in the field of robotics. 03:46.230 --> 03:51.270 And finally, in 2009, it officially released the first version of Ros. 03:51.300 --> 03:54.690 To facilitate the development of robotics applications. 03:55.200 --> 04:02.250 Nowadays, the development of the functionalities of Ros is managed by the Open Source Robotics Foundation 04:02.250 --> 04:08.490 that in 2018 also released the first version of Ros two that we are going to use in this course. 04:09.260 --> 04:10.100 Until today. 04:10.100 --> 04:17.090 There are many Ros based robots that operate in different fields, from the industry to research and 04:17.090 --> 04:23.930 service robotics, and even to this partial exploration succeeding in achieving the purpose of the Ros 04:23.930 --> 04:24.590 Project. 04:24.590 --> 04:28.610 That was to reuse the same software components in all the robots. 04:28.610 --> 04:33.080 So in robots with different mechanics that serve different purposes.