The Project

My project this summer was working on a comprehensive ROS interface for the Aldebaran NAO. The purpose of this interface was to provide basic functionality of varied types (audio, lights, motion, vision) in a single ROS package. The goal was to make this package as usable and customizable as needed for users regarding experience level and research focus.

The Aldebaran NAO

The Aldebaran NAO is a humanoid robot approximately 2 feet tall. It comes equipped with tools including LEDs, touch sensors, microphones, speakers, and a camera. It is currently being employed in research as varied as human robot-interaction, robot navigation, and object perception. You can learn more about the NAO at the official Aldebaran website and about research using the NAO here.

ROS (Robot Operation System)

ROS is an open-source operating system developed by Willow Garage and is based on Switchyard, written at Stanford. It supports multidevice system by providing a universal format for communication across different machines. Its goal is to "enable software developers to build more capable robot applications quickly and easily on a common platform" (Willow Garage). You can find out more about ROS at Willow Garage's ROS page or at the ROS Wiki.