Microsoft Technical Preview June 20, 2006
 Major Microsoft Robotics Initiative to Accelerate Development of Robotics in Hobby, Education and Industrial Arenas
Microsoft Enters Robotics—An Educator's Perspective
Microsoft Robotics Studio Provides Common Ground for Robotics Innovation
Microsoft Robotics Studio Simulation—An Overview
A very exciting moment has arrived. Microsoft has launched a major robotics initiative that we believe will profoundly accelerate the growth of the robotics marketplace. We recommend that you read the full press releases via the hotlinks below. Today at RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition 2006, Microsoft Corp. showcased the Community Technology Preview (CTP) of a new Windows-based environment for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotic applications for a wide variety of computing platforms. The community technology preview of the Microsoft Robotics Studio is available for free download at http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics.
The Microsoft Robotics Studio provides a common development platform for robotics innovators to overcome one of their biggest remaining hurdles: the fragmentation of the robotics industry caused by today's incompatible platforms. A key component of Microsoft's initiative is its simulation runtime. Microsoft noted "that PC and Console gaming has paved the way when it comes to affordable, widely usable, robotics simulation." The simulation runtime can be used in a variety of advanced scenarios with high demands for fidelity, visualization and scaling. And there is also great news for hobbyists, students and newcomers to robotics--a novice user can use the simulation platform with little to no coding experience and develop applications in a game-like environment.
Of particular note is Microsoft's partnership with Ageia, which brings to this suite an incredibly strong physics simulation product that is mature and that will be invaluable to robotics applications, soup to nuts. The rendering engine is based on managed DirectX and in a future release, on the new XNA framework.
In addition, early adopter companies, universities and research institutes, who have been working behind the scenes with Microsoft, offered demos and provided diverse support for the new Microsoft® Robotics Studio development platform. Soren Lund, global director of LEGO MINDSTORMS, noted: "In combination with Microsoft Robotics Studio, PC users will have a sophisticated tool that will further extend the powerful NXT hardware and software to an even wider range of developers who wish to create advanced applications for their LEGO robots." That is a significant vote of confidence from one of the titans in hobby and educational robotics.
"Microsoft sees great potential in robotics, and we are excited to deliver our first CTP of Robotics Studio, making it easier to create robotic applications across a wide variety of hardware, users and scenarios," said Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group at Microsoft. "We've reached out to a broad range of leading robotics companies and academics early on in the development process and are thrilled with the positive response from the community."
VISUAL PROGRAMMING TOOL
The Microsoft Robotics Studio includes a visual programming tool that makes it easy to create and debug robot apps. Moreover it offers a lightweight, services-oriented runtime that simplifies accessing the state of a robot's sensors and actuators with a web browser, and it supports reusability of code modules. The platform is scalable and its libraries and services can be expanded by third parties.
It already supports 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. Take a look at the full press releases to see the broad range of companies and universities working with Microsoft. These include CoroWare (an Innova Holdings company), KUKA Robot Group, Robosoft, RoboticsConnection, White Box Robotics, Fischertechnik, MobileRobots Inc, Parallax, Phidgets, ABB, InTouch Health, Lynxmotion, RoboDynamics, Senseta, Trossen Robotics and Ugobe. Educational centers include Bryn Mawr College, Cornell University, Georgia Tech, Korea Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pisa, University of Southern California, and the University of Washington.
Related breaking news: Carnegie Mellon University announced plans for a Center for Robotics Innovation. Established with funding and support from the Microsoft Robotics Group, the center will operate a Web site, http://www.cir.ri.cmu.edu, for hobbyists, academics and commercial companies to share robotics ideas, technology and software. The new center will open by late 2006. This is an exciting time in robotics, and ROBOT magazine is on the trail to bring you the latest. We will be personally interviewing Tandy Trower at the show--stay tuned!
--the editors
Microsoft Enters Robotics—An Educator's Perspective
Microsoft Robotics Studio Provides Common Ground for Robotics Innovation
Microsoft Robotics Studio Simulation—An Overview |
