On Thu, 16 Feb 2012, Edwards, Shaun M. wrote: > Herman, > > I definitely agree. I had Orocos in mind for the hard realtime aspects. > Could you elaborate more on the "Coordination via FSM" or provide a web > link? This might be a good introduction. Coordination is _the_ major missing feature in ROS. (SMACH is a small step in this direction.) My contacts with industrial/professional users of Orocos is that most of their added value lies in how good they are in doing "pure Coordination" (together with find the "best" architecture for a particular application, but both things are highly coupled). Herman > > Shaun Edwards > Senior Research Engineer > Manufacturing System Department > > > http://robotics.swri.org > http://rosindustrial.swri.org/ > http://ros.swri.org > Southwest Research Institute > 210-522-3277 > > > -----Original Message----- > From: ros-users-bounces@code.ros.org [mailto:ros-users-bounces@code.ros.org] On Behalf Of Herman Bruyninckx > Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 2:13 PM > To: User discussions > Subject: Re: [ros-users] Current state of SMACH in ROS > > On Thu, 16 Feb 2012, Edwards, Shaun M. wrote: > >> All, >> >> We are in the initial steps of setting up a consortium to support the >> development of ROS-Industrial (http://code.google.com/p/swri-ros-pkg/ ). >> We are nowhere near standing up the consortium, but assuming we are >> successful, SMACH is near the top of our list of ROS functionality that >> needs to be improved. We will certainly work with the ROS community at >> large to further develop this tool, but the main goal of the consortium >> is to build on existing tools in a way that servers the needs of >> industrial users. > > The industrial focus has been the major driver in the Orocos project, since > more than ten years now. Orocos has some mature features that industry > needs: hard realtime and efficient Coordination via FSM are two of the > features on top of the list. > > ROS and Orocos can be used in nice synergy, with each focusing on its > strenghts. So, before putting again lots of efforts in reinventing good > wheels in one single framewrok, please take a good look at how one should > build multiple-framework applications, tools and systems. > >> Shaun Edwards >> Senior Research Engineer >> Manufacturing System Department > > Herman > >> http://robotics.swri.org >> http://rosindustrial.swri.org/ >> http://ros.swri.org >> Southwest Research Institute >> 210-522-3277 >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: ros-users-bounces@code.ros.org [mailto:ros-users-bounces@code.ros.org] On Behalf Of Wim Meeussen >> Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 12:04 PM >> To: User discussions >> Subject: Re: [ros-users] Current state of SMACH in ROS >> >>> So the official maintainer of SMACH is still Wim Meeussen, I handed it off >>> to him after I left Willow in late 2010, but I still jump in occasionally to >>> answer questions and fix bugs. SMACH is not actively developed (no new >>> features are planned at this time), but it should still be maintained. My >>> involvement has lapsed a bit over the past year, but I intend to get more >>> actively involved. >> >> I wanted to add to this that while SMACH is not actively developed at >> this time, we do support it and release it into every ROS >> distribution, and it still gets used heavily in both existing and new >> projects. >> >> Wim >> >> >> >> > > -- -- KU Leuven, Mechanical Eng., Mechatronics & Robotics Research Group Tel: +32 16 328056 EURON Coordinator (European Robotics Research Network) Open Realtime Control Services Associate Editor JOSER , IJRR